Description

GANTON MAIN STREET
SE 97 NE (east side, off)
6/8 Church of St Nicholas

10.10.66
- II*

Church. C14, incorporating C13 chancel and transept arches; C15 tower and
south porch; chancel partly rebuilt during restoration of 1843. Dressed
sandstone with stone slate roof; stone slab roof to porch. West tower;
3-bay nave, north aisle, south porch and south transept; chancel and north
chapel. Diagonal-buttressed, 2-stage tower on triple-chamfered plinth.
Pointed 3-light west window and 4 paired louvred bell-openings all with
panel tracery; openings under head-stopped hoodmoulds; north and west clock
faces beneath bellstage. South-east vice with slits. Belfry string course;
corbel table of masks, fleurons and grotesques. Octagonal spire recessed
behind embattled parapet pierced at south-east corner by a quatrefoil.
Grotesque waterspouts and cockerel weathervane. North aisle west window of
2 lights with geometric tracery, beneath coved hoodmould. Diagonal-
buttressed gabled south porch has double-chamfered pointed opening.
Heraldic shield carved with early C15 arms of.Hillesthorpe in gable apex.
Porch roof rib-vaulted. Pointed south door enriched with fleurons and heads,
some renewed, in continuous mouldings; both entrances under head-stopped
hoodmould. Reinforced south door on bifurcated C hinges; trefoil-headed
niche above. Square-headed south window of 3 lights with mouchettes. North
aisle on double-chamfered plinth has blocked pointed doorway beneath coved
hoodmould at west end, 3 original square-headed 2-light Perpendicular
windows and similar east window. Shallow-gabled transept on chamfered
plinth has diagonal buttresses and 3-light Perpendicular window beneath
coved hoodmould; sill band. Chancel south side has blocked earlier openings
and inserted priest's door to east of 2-light geometrical window. 3-light
geometric east window. Coped gables terminating in gablets with crosses to
nave, chancel, porch and transept.
Interior: pointed, double-chamfered tower arch beneath coved hoodmould.
Tower stairs corbelled-out on each side of arch. Arcade of wide, double-
chamfered pointed arches on octagonal columns and responds. Column bases
carved with scallop shells; capitals carved alternately with fleurons and
rosettes. Continuous hoodmould on corbel heads. Pointed chamfered chancel
arch on corbels beneath head-stopped hoodmould. Similar arch to south
transept. North aisle projects beyond nave to form chapel north of chancel.
At east end 2 ogee-headed canopied niches, the northern one corbelled on a
carved figure. Also an aumbry, piscina and partly-blocked squint. Plain
tub font. Jubilee clock of 1897. Legard hatchments on nave south wall.
Fine low-pitched roof with ridge piece, principals and purlins resting on
moulded ties with windbraces. Monuments. Transept is Legard mortuary
chapel, blocked off from nave by carved screen. On west wall, an illegible
C18 aedicule tablet surmounted by flaming urn and oil lamps. On east wall,
a baroque monument to John Legard (d 1678) with putti. Elsewhere, several
wall tablets to members of the Legard family by Fisher and Skelton of York.
Tablet by Deare of Rome to William Wilson (d 1792), "an honest, industrious,
sober ploughman ..... who adorned the garden" of the Legards. Stained
glass: nave south window signed by Capronnier. Good Transfiguration window
of 1868 in north aisle. Pretty transept window to 3 Legard sisters. East
window said to be by Wailes.

Listing NGR: SE9898777599

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of St Nicholas at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17539655

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide