St Nicholas, Barfreston

St Nicholas is a Grade I parish church in Barfrestone, in the civil parish of Eythorne, Kent, a small but richly decorated late twelfth-century building of nave and chancel.

Overview

Historic England records a parish church of about 1180, restored in 1839-42 by R. C. Hussey, of flint and Caen stone ashlar under a plain tiled roof. The lower walls are flint, with ashlar above carrying blind arcading (except on the west wall) and a corbel table. The arcading alternates large and small semi-circular arches, the smaller with lancet windows. Only a two-light fifteenth-century window in the west wall is later than the twelfth century, though a twelfth-century lancet and quatrefoil also survive there. The east end has an arcaded weathered base, buttresses and a large wheel window whose spokes are colonnettes with beasts' heads as capitals, set in a surround of leaves and winged beasts. Recesses around the wheel hold fragments of the Evangelists' symbols and a knight on horseback. Brackets on the gable ends bear crouching lions. The south doorway is the richest sculpture, with attached shafts carved with beasts, water-leaf volutes and three orders around a tympanum including a labours-of-the-month cycle.

Kent HER notes that formerly extensive wall paintings were almost entirely lost in the nineteenth-century restoration, and that the plan is a parallelogram rather than a rectangle.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1070306
• British Listed Buildings: Church of St Nicholas
• Kent HER: Church of St Nicholas