Description

TL 86 SE RUSHBROOKE

4/53 Church of St. Nicholas
-
14.7.55
I

Parish church. C14 tower; the remainder mainly rebuilt during the C16. Nave,
chancel, south aisle, south porch and west tower. Rubble flint with old
render; freestone quoins; some Tudor brick, especially for window mullions and
dressings; plaintiled roofs. Crow-stepping to gables of porch,and east ends
of nave and chancel. A flat roof to the south aisle, with a row of gargoyle
heads below the parapet. Tower in 3 stages, unbuttressed, with crenellated
top and gargoyle waterheads; on west, a 2-light Decorated window to the first
stage, and a single lancet to the second stage; cusped Y-tracery windows to
each face of top stage. 3-light windows, with depressed heads and
intersecting tracery, to the north side of nave and south side of aisle, the
latter with cusping, and a similar blocked window on the east side of the
aisle. 3-light windows with panel tracery to chancel. 4-centred arched
doorway to porch with an empty niche above. South doorway with leaf and
flower motifs in the spandrels and cavetto moulding to surround. This doorway
leads into the end of the south aisle, which extends for the whole length of
the nave and part of the chancel. It is divided inside into 3 sections with
stone walls between: the central section was the family pew of the Jermyn
family, and the eastern bay is their funeral chapel, containing various
monuments of the C17 and early C18, including a black and white marble
monument with reclining figure to Thomas Jermyn, d.1692, and another to Sir
Robert Davers, d.1722, with a grey sarophagus surmounted by a broken pediment
with garland. Fine steeply-pitched roof to nave in 5 bays with all components
moulded: no tie-beams or collars, simply long arched braces which meet in a
pendant boss below the apex. A deep cornice with lozenge decoration, and
short wall-posts with the remains of shields as corbels. Shallow-pitched
chancel roof in 4 bays, like a cambered ceiling: tie-beams with a formalised
leaf-type motif, mouldings to trimmers and joists: ornate carving and
brattishing to the cornice, and shields on the corbels. The nave and chancel
windows contain fragments of medieval stained glass and there are 2 complete
figures in the east window. The floor of the chancel is completely paved with
late C17/early C18 black ledger slabs. Simple piscinae to chancel and south
aisle. On the north wall of the chancel a brass to Thomas Badby, d.1583, a
Bury St. Edmund's clothier. The seating in the nave was introduced in the
1840's at the instigation of Col. Rushbrook of Rushbrooke Hall, and is
arranged against the north and south walls as in a college chapel, in
Victorian Gothic style, incorporating some fragments of medieval woodwork. At
the west end, an ornate organ with the pipes painted in designs in green and
gold. A curious tiered timber font in the west end of the south aisle was
also introduced by Col. Rushbrooke. A timber and plaster tympanum infilling
the chancel arch, and resting on what is said to be the rood beam, bears the
royal arms of Henry VIII with a dragon and greyhound as supporters, flanked by
a portcullis and Tudor rose. These arms, claimed by Munro Cautley as unique,
were not in the church in the early C19: they are not mentioned in Davy's
church notes (c.1840), and Henry and Parker's 'Suffolk Churches'(1855) says
they are of 'modern introduction'. Dr. Diarmaid MacCulloch suggests that,
although of older workmanship, they were probably introduced here from another
setting by Col. Rushbrooke. (See Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. Vol. XXXII Part 2,
1971, p.197).

Listing NGR: TL8934161520

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17526983

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.

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