St Nicholas, West Tanfield

St Nicholas is a Grade I Church of England parish church in West Tanfield, North Yorkshire, on an outcrop above the River Ure beside the fifteenth-century Marmion Tower.

Overview

Historic England records an early thirteenth-century church with late thirteenth- and fifteenth-century work, restored in 1859–60 (Wikipedia, citing the list entry, names T. H. Wyatt). The fabric is coursed squared stone and ashlar with Welsh slate roofs. The plan is a Perpendicular three-stage west tower, nave, south porch, north aisle with vestry, and chancel. The tower has offset diagonal buttresses, a three-light west window with rectilinear tracery, two-light belfry openings and a projecting embattled parapet. The south porch of about 1200 has a round-arched moulded doorway and a stone tunnel vault. Nave walls are fifteenth-century, refaced in 1860; the north aisle is Perpendicular, four bays, with a five-light east window.

The late thirteenth-century north arcade has four bays of octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. A recess behind the chancel arch, facing the north chapel, may relate to a chantry founded in 1335 for Maude Marmion. The north aisle holds Marmion monuments, including an effigy of Sir William Marmion (d. 1275) and alabaster effigies of Sir John Marmion (d. 1387) and his wife under a contemporary iron hearse with candle spikes — ironwork of this date over a tomb that the listing calls probably unique in England. Some fifteenth-century stained glass survives in the north aisle. Roofs are nineteenth-century hammerbeam.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1150775
• British Listed Buildings: Church of St Nicholas, West Tanfield
• Yoredale Benefice: St Nicholas, West Tanfield