King's
Lynn, Norfolk - St Nicholas Chapel |
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Click on photos below to enlarge
Notes in italics from North-West and South Norfolk by Nikolaus Pevsner
(1962) Penguin Books, now published by Yale University Press |
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ST NICHOLAS, St Ann's Street. A chapel of ease
founded in 1146; not a parish church. Except for the SW tower built at one go in
the early C15 and called 'de novo edificata' in 1419. E.E. tower, lying lower
than the rest. To the W doorway with continuous chamfers, to the W, N, and S
blank giant arch on thin shafts. On the first floor blank window of two lights
with a quatrefoil in plate tracery and a little nailhead decoration.
Bell-openings with a circle in bar tracery. The pretty lead spire is by Sir
George Gilbert Scott, 1869. |
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The E wall of the tower is different. It
has three blocked lancets and probably represents the W wall of the C13 church,
before the tower was built. The Perp church is eleven bays long without any
structural division. Externally the only accents are the doorways in the second
and seventh bays and the splendid S porch of two storeys in front of the second
bay. Above the entrance a row of flat niches, above that very delicate panelling
between three more niches. Panelled parapet. Inside the porch a lively
lierne-star-vault with figured bosses (not shown). |
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The details of St Nicholas are notably
wilful, especially the window tracery, in spite of the fact that it follows the
same principle throughout. The aisle and chapel windows and the clerestory
windows all have segmental arches. In the aisles and chapels they
have two-centred arches under, and these are again subdivided. There are every
so often unexpected diagonal lines. The same character appears in the N aisle W
window, and even in the huge W and E windows, of eleven and nine lights
respectively. On the W side the doorway cuts into the window. |
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The interior shows no sign of a change of plan from
E to W. Piers of lozenge plan, finely subdivided. Capitals only to the thin
shafts under the arches. The abaci here are concave-sided. |
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The shaft towards the
nave rises to the roof. Before it reaches the wall-posts it is flanked by two
niches with little vaults. The roof has tie-beams on arched braces. Above the
tie-beams tracery and arched queenposts. ... The large angels are not
mentioned by Pevsner and must be quite recent. |
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The N doorways again very capricious.
They have heads of three sides of an octagon and the western one is cusped
and subcusped. In the chancel on the N side yet another such doorway. Double-concave-sided gable, cusping and
subcusping. To its r. demi-figure of an
angel in an oblong niche. It is too small for an Easter Sepulchre. Opposite
badly mutilated, once very rich sedilia and piscina. They had miniature vaults. |
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Map
More
about St Nicholas at Norfolk Churches
More
of Norfolk on Astoft |
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