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This is a church with plenty of interesting features.

The church consists of nave and chancel, north and south aisles, west tower and south porch. The earliest material is early 12th century Norman, now confined to the lower masonry of the tower, with fragments of the wall between nave and chancel, and the south and north doors. The nave arcades are 13th century, and many of the windows were re-formed in the 14th century in Decorated style. The upper part of the tower, clerestory, and the eastern end of the north aisle, including the arcade arch into the chancel, are 15th century Perpendicular. A major restoration was carried out in 1874-5 by Oldrid Scott, son of Sir George Gilbert Scott, but this largely retained the existing tracery so that the appearance of the church was little changed. The most significant change was the replacement of the chancel and St Nicholas roofs with ones with a much steeper pitch.

The aisle arcades are 13th century, but clearly replace earlier arcades as the columns rise from Norman bases. They are unusual in consisting of only two arches each, although these are wide and elegant. The centre columns show another peculiar feature. They have, for want of a better description, pseudo-capitals between the column and the arch. In both arcades these mark the transition between the profile of the column and the profile of the arch, although the point of spring of the arch is noticeably lower than the decoration. The two sides have different profiles, the north side appearing to be earlier, with a much simpler profile. The pseudo-capital consists of a series of unconnected small heads acting as stops to grooves in the column profile. The south arcade column has foliage carving acting as the capital, although it is not continuous round the column.

The south aisle has a most unusual, for a village church, stone parclose screen dividing off the eastern bay alongside the chancel to form a chapel dedicated to St Nicholas. It is very simple, and rather heavy-looking, and dated from the early 14th century.

The chancel arch is 13th century with a similar profile to the south arcade. Across it stands a wooden rood screen. The lower panels of this are medieval, probably 15th or 16th century, but the upper part was created by local craftsmen in the early 20th century. The arch is slightly off centre, with the result that the screen is asymmetrical, with 3 bays on the north side and 4 on the south.

The chancel has a 13th century arch on each side into the aisles, with a further 15th century arch on the north side where the aisle was extended east to the east end of the church. Situated under this arch is the fine 16th century plaster-ornamented tomb of Sir Henry Fitzwilliam, a Tudor judge. The easternmost bay now houses the vestry.

The chancel houses what is considered to be the finest feature of the church. This is the series of mural paintings by the Scottish artist Phoebe Anna Traquair. They were gifted to the church by Lady D'Arcy Godolphin Osborne to commemorate the safe return from the second Boer War of her son Captain Joseph Laycock and completed in 1905. The main scenes depict incidents in the life of Christ.

The old font (?17th century) has been returned to use recently, replacing the one installed during the restoration of 1874-5. There are several interesting monuments inside the church, the earliest being to an inscribed slab under the tower to an early 15th century rector. There are also two Grade II Listed monuments in the churchyard.

The church is Listed Grade I; for more details see Link

Created: Thu, 9 Oct 2014, Updated: Mon, 24 Oct 2016