St Nicolas Church is the Church of England parish church of Newbury, Berkshire, and stands just south of the main bridge over the

River Kennet The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which � ...

, in the centre of the town. It is chiefly remarkable for the consistency of its Perpendicular

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

architectural style and its unusually large size for a parish church.

History

St. Nicolas Church is dedicated to the eponymous Bishop of Myra in the fourth century. A church was first built in this spot during Norman times, and it is mentioned in a document of 1086 in which Ernulf of Hesding gives the church of the Abbey of Préaux. The present parish church was entirely rebuilt, probably between the years 1509 and 1533. It is in the architectural style of the late Perpendicular period. The presence of certain devices in the stonework, in particular the pomegranate device (the apple of Grenada) and the portcullis device (which appears on the Tudor royal escutcheon) indicates that the church was built during the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, which ended in divorce in 1533. In Fuller's ''History of the Worthies of England'', published in 1663, it is stated: " John Winchcombe, commonly called Jack of Newbury... built the church of Newbury, from the pulpit westward to the tower inclusively, and died about the year 1520". Although the church was extensively restored by the

Victorians In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...

, they made no major structural alterations.

Architecture

The plan of the church is typical for a parish church, consisting of

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

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. Ov ...

with no

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...

. Considered large compared to other churches of the same style, the nave has a clerestory, lighted by five large three light windows on either side, and aisles with arcades of five arches each. These aisles open into what were chantry-chapels on either side of the chancel. The southern chantry-chapel still has that role, but the northern is used as a

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

and contains the organ. There is a tower at the western end which contains a peal of ten bells and a Sanctus bell. The back eight bells date from 1803 and were cast from the now defunct Wells of Aldbourne bell foundry. The bells were re-hung in 1933 with new fittings and were augmented from 8 to 10. The front two date from 1933 and were cast by Mears & Stainbank of Whitechapel Road, London. The tenor bell, which weighs 21-2-1 (1093 kg), is in the note of D. The stained glass windows date from the

Victorian restoration The Victorian restoration was the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria. It was not the same proc ...

Henry Woodyer Henry Woodyer (1816–1896) was an English architect, a pupil of William Butterfield and a disciple of A. W. N. Pugin and the Ecclesiologists. Life Woodyer was born in Guildford, Surrey, England, in 1816, the son of a successful, highly resp ...

as do the external

crenellations A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interv ...

along the roof-line, and the pinnacles and turrets of the tower. There is a Jacobean pulpit dating from 1607.

Today

The church continues to play a central role in both the Christian and wider cultural life of Newbury, fulfilling its purpose as an Evangelical Anglican parish church of Biblical preaching and worship.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Newbury, Saint Nicholas Church Evangelicalism in the Church of England Church of England missions English Gothic architecture in Berkshire Church of England church buildings in Berkshire Grade I listed churches in Berkshire Buildings and structures in Newbury, Berkshire Diocese of Oxford