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St Nicholas, Condicote, Gloucestershire

Location
(51°57′10″N, 1°46′54″W)
Condicote
SP 151 283
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Gloucestershire
now Gloucestershire
medieval Worcester
now Gloucester
  • John Wand
27 May 2015, 20 July 2018

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Description

Condicote is a small Cotswold village 3 miles NW of Stow-on-the-Wold. The church, which is built of rubble, lies in a central location in the village on the N side of a large village green. The building consists of a chancel, nave, S porch and a 19thc. vestry N of the chancel. Much of the fabric from the 12thc. building survives, including the S doorway and chancel arch. In addition there is Romanesque sculpture set in the S porch, possibly from a N doorway, and Romanesque string courses reset into the exterior W nave wall as well as part of the string course on the N wall of the chancel still in situ. There are also corbels on the corners of the chancel.

History

The parish of Condicote consisted of four estates in 1086 totalling five and a half hides (Williams, 2002, 451, 453, 461 and 466) The cathedral church of Worcester had two hides in Condicote. These two hides were held of the bishop in the 12thc. by Margaret de Bohun and her descendants, the earls of Hereford. The second estate, of one and a half hides, was held by Durand of Gloucester, the sheriff, and was inherited by Margaret de Bohun in the 12thc. The third Condicote estate was a berewick of Oddington manor, held before 1066 by St Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester and afterwards the subject of dispute between St Peter’s and the archbishops of York. The fourth estate, of half a hide, was held by William Froisseloup in 1086 (Elrington, 1965).

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Exterior Decoration

String courses
Corbel tables, corbels

Interior Features

Arches

Chancel arch/Apse arches

Loose Sculpture

Comments/Opinions

The arch of the second order has been reset as the cable and bead moulding does not align in the present configuration. However, taking the present arrangements of stones as ABCDEFG clockwise from left, the correct ordering should be GFEDCBA, as shown in the reconstruction. This probably resulted from the workman resetting the stones working from the back.

The N chancel string course is similar to the lower stringcourse reset in the W nave wall. This suggests that the latter string course also came from the chancel wall. The plan by Waller in the Gloucestershire County archives (1887) shows that the N wall of the chancel had a string course along its entire length prior to construction of the vestry.

The loose sculpture set in the NW corner of the nave is similar to the upper reset string course on the W nave wall.

The middle string course in the W wall totals 3.74m which closely matches the original width of the E end of the chancel, 3.87m.

Bibliography

F. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications, 3 vols (London, 1899), iii. 94.

C.R. Elrington, 'Parishes; Condicote', Victoria County History of Gloucestershire (London, 1965), vi. 63--72.

Historic England Building listing 1089911.

M. Salter, The Old Parish Churches of Gloucestershire (Malvern, 2008), 55.

D. Verey and A. Brooks, The Buildings of England, Gloucestershire I: The Cotswolds, 3rd edn (London, 1999), 302--303.

F. W. Waller. 1887. Gloucestershire County Archives, Gloucester, D/2593/2/483.

A. Williams and G. H. Martin (ed.), Domesday Book. A Complete Translation (London, 2003), 451, 453, 461, 466.