St Nicholas Church is a

redundant Redundancy or redundant may refer to: Language * Redundancy (linguistics), information that is expressed more than once Engineering and computer science * Data redundancy, database systems which have a field that is repeated in two or more table ...

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church in the village of Freefolk,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, England. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

, and is under the care of the

Churches Conservation Trust The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...

. The church stands to the south of the B3400 road and the

River Test The River Test is a chalk stream in Hampshire in the south of England. It rises at Ashe near Basingstoke and flows southwards for to Southampton Water. Settlements on the Test include the towns of Stockbridge and Romsey. The river's vall ...

, some east of Whitchurch.

History

The presence of a church on the site was recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

, but the present church dates from the 13th century. The windows and

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

screen were added in the 15th century. In 1703 the interior of the church was remodelled. During the 19th century the parish of Freefolk was united with that of

Laverstoke Laverstoke ( ) is a village in north west Hampshire, England. The On the other side of the River Test there is the settlement at Freefolk which is included in the Laverstock census return. In the early 18th century, Laverstoke Mill was purchased ...

. In 1896 a new, larger church was built to the north, on the other side of the road, and the functions of St Nicholas were transferred to this church, St Mary's, Laverstoke. St Nicholas was declared redundant on 11 December 1974 and was

vested In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property are acquired by some Legal person, person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vest ...

in the Churches Conservation Trust on 27 October 1976.

Architecture

Exterior

The church consists of a single rectangular cell measuring by . It is constructed in stone

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionar ...

with stone dressings. Its walls are partly rendered, and are supported by brick

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

es. The roof is tiled. At the west end of the roof is a weatherboarded

bellcote A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

with a lead-covered pyramidal roof. The windows are

Perpendicular In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...

in style, those on the sides (two on the north, three on the south) having a single light, the west window has two lights and the east window three lights. On the south side is a doorway, above which is a plaque bearing the date 1703.

Interior

Around the interior of the church is a moulded

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

dating from 1703. On the east wall of the church, on each side of the altar, are painted boards containing the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (, ), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God’s holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manusc ...

and the

Creed A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) which summarizes its core tenets. Many Christian denominations use three creeds ...

, and on the south wall is a large board inscribed with the

Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments (), or the Decalogue (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , ), are religious and ethical directives, structured as a covenant document, that, according to the Hebrew Bible, were given by YHWH to Moses. The text of the Ten ...

. On the north wall, opposite the south door, are three layers of wall paintings. To the east of this is the large Jacobean monument to Sir Richard Powlett who died in 1614. This consists of a recumbent

effigy An effigy is a sculptural representation, often life-size, of a specific person or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain ...

on a tomb chest. Two figures kneeling at the front represent his two daughters.Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, The kings England, Arthur Mee. Published 1939. Hodder and Stoughton The monument is housed in an elaborate surround and enclosed in

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

railings. At the west end of the church is a 15th-century screen. Also in the church are two hatchments, a

Royal arms The royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, also referred to as the royal arms, are the arms of dominion of the British monarch, currently Charles III. They are used by the Government of the United Kingdom and by other The Crown, Crown instit ...

dated 1701, and a Victorian era, Victorian baptismal font, font.

References

External links