Details
WEYMOUTH
SY6683 MILL STREET, Broadwey
873-1/8/435 (North side)
12/12/53 Church of St Nicholas
GV II
Anglican parish church. Medieval fragments, including C12 S
door, but principally C19 rebuilding; N aisle of 1815, nave
1834, chancel and vestry 1874, S aisle and chapel, 1902 and
1904.
MATERIALS: mainly Portland stone ashlar, but rubble to the
wall of the N aisle, slate or lead roofs.
PLAN: the nave, with bell turret, and flanking aisles has a W
wall taken down to a basement level well below the adjacent
churchyard level, but exposed in the approach drive to the
Manor House (qv); detail is varied, but the major C19
reconstructions are in rather heavy neo-Norman work.
EXTERIOR: the W front has to the nave a double bell turret
with cusped openings and a terminal cross, above a reset C15
three-light window in Ham stone, with casement and label
moulds, with head stops of a bishop and a king. To the left is
a 2-light C16 window under square label course, and to the
right a 3-light Perpendicular with label to block stops. The
whole is set to a high plinth, which includes a small double
lancet, right, to the boiler room.
The W end of the S aisle has a coped gable, with a small apex
stack. The S front has a 3-light window, to block stops, left,
and to carved king and queen, right; between these is the C14
porch, with coped gable and cross over a steep pointed plain
outer doorway. The inner doorway is a rich Norman composition
with roll, chevron and billet moulds, on column responds with
a serpent capital left, and bearded head, right. The doors are
of the C19. A chamfered stone eaves course under the cast-iron
gutter, with square hopper-heads and downpipes fixed by
splayed cleats, including one to the porch.
At the W end of the aisle is a monument built into the wall
under a label and serrated round arch. The monument has
lettering in crude capitals, commemorating William Hopkins the
Elder and his wife Mary, died 4 July, also William and Mary,
son and daughter, died 22 September 1643. Beneath, in Latin,
one of the favourite memento mori 'Quod Estis Furimus. Quod
Sumus Eritis'.
Set back at the E end of the aisle is the chapel with heavy
neo-Norman doorway and adjacent small window. Here is a
modillion eaves cornice, and cast-iron downpipe as before. The
E end is coped, with a roll saddle above an oculus and a flush
round-arched light. The projecting chancel has a spiky oculus
above a 2-light neo-Norman window. Built in to the S wall is a
tablet with raised oval panel and sunk corners with fans in
relief, commemorating Revd Robert Marriott, d.1819, and on the
N side a very similar monument to John Furmedge, d.1879. These
slabs are identical with those in the Firth monument (qv) in
the churchyard.
The vestry has a large neo-Norman window with scallop and
billet embellishments, and is linked to a C20 church room. The
N side has two 3-light windows with interlaced bars, without
cusping, and a very low pitched lead roof.
INTERIOR: plain whitewashed walls, with a wide nave with 3-bay
neo-Norman S arcade, but carrying 4-centred arches, and 4-bay
N arcade of plain semicircular arches on slender octagonal
piers with thin capitals and no bases, but at the W end a
length of plain wall incorporating a plain arched opening at
window height; the roof has trusses with queen and king posts,
and is close boarded. The S aisle has a barrel ceiling in 36
compartments with 30 carved wooden bosses. The organ at the E
end blocks a richly modelled neo-Norman archway. The chancel
arch has a large roll-mould and chevron on cushion caps. The N
aisle has a plain plastered ceiling, and blind arch at the E
end; the vestry beyond has a scissor truss roof. The chancel,
on 2 steps, has a rafter roof, and to N and S there are
blocked round arches, with vestry door inset to the N. The
sanctuary, with rich floor tiling, is partly enlosed by a
screen approx 2m high.
FITTINGS: a fine C17 five-sided pulpit, pitch pine C19 pews, a
C12 Purbeck marble round font with fluted bowl, on plain stem
and 4 thin supports. In the vestry is a marble tablet to
William Kellaway, 1839. The brass communion rail has been
brought forward into the first bay of the nave.
(RCHME: Dorset, South-East: London: 1970-: 359).
Listing NGR: SY6678283541
