St Nicholas's is a parish church in

Otham Otham is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Maidstone, Maidstone district of Kent, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 523, with 204 dwellings. Buildings The village itself has been in existence since be ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

begun in the 12th century with additions in the next two centuries. It is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History and architecture

Construction of the church began in the late 12th century. From this period date the tower, the north and south walls of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and the lower

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

, all of which were constructed with uncoursed stone and

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitate out of water in unheated rivers or lakes. Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less porous) carbonate deposits, which are known as travertine. ...

rubble walls. The chapels on the north side were added in the 14th century. The steeply pitched roof is covered with clay tiles. The square tower is attached to the south side of the church at the junction between the nave and the chancel. It is buttressed on both faces of the external corners and has been extended vertically with a 16th-century timber weatherboarded belfry topped by a timber

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

and an octagonal timber

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

. On the east side of the tower is a partly projecting stair tower and a blocked-in doorway. Small rectangular and

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...

s pierce the tower at each level; those on the stair tower dating from the 13th or 14th centuries. The short nave features a rubble walled windowless porch attached to the south side in the 19th century and a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d west end rebuilt in the same century with a window of four lights in the 13th-century style. A two-lighted window on the north side is 13th-century and the two-lighted windows on the right and left sides of the porch are 14th- and 19th-century respectively. On the north side of the nave, a blocked-in doorway with a pointed arch surrounded by a carved rectangular architrave is 14th-century. The three windows on the south side of the chancel, the lancet window on its north side and the three-lighted window in the east end are all 19th-century, but in a 13th-century style. Attached centrally to the north side of the nave and chancel as a pitched-roofed extension, the chapels include three two-lighted windows, the one in the nave chapel being

quatrefoil A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...

ed. The roof to the nave is supported on three

crown post A crown post is a term in traditional timber framing for a post in roof framing which stands on a ''tie beam'' or ''collar beam'' and supports a ''collar plate''.Alcock, N. W.. Recording timber-framed buildings: an illustrated glossary. London: ...

s on unbraced tie beams. The roof to the chancel is 19th-century and boarded.

Furnishings and monuments

Internally, a 14th-century

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

is set on a

chamfer A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces. Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fu ...

ed base with a face, two calves' heads and a leaf. Monuments in the chancel are to Thomas Hendley (d. 1590), Levinus Buffkin (d. 1622), John Hendley (d. 1676), Thomas Fludd (d. 1688) and William and Dorothea Henley (d. 1762 and 1785). In the Chancel chapel are monuments to Elizabeth Hendley (d. 1697) and Bowyer Hendley (d. 1742). The churchyard contains two Grade II listed monuments.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Otham, Saintt Nicholas Borough of Maidstone 12th-century church buildings in England Grade I listed churches in Kent Church of England church buildings in Kent Diocese of Canterbury

History and architecture

Furnishings and monuments

See also

References