St Nicholas Church, Chiswick is a Grade II* listed Anglican church in Church Street, Chiswick, London, near the River Thames. The oldest part of Chiswick developed as a village around the church from c. 1181. The tower was built at some time between 1416 and 1435. The current church dates from 1882–84, when most of the building except the tower was demolished and rebuilt at the expense of the brewer Henry Smith of the nearby Fuller, Smith and Turner brewery. Several monuments survive, mainly in the tower.
History
There has been a church on the Chiswick site since at least 1181 in Norman times. The church was formally visited and an inventory made at "the unusually early date of 1252": This first inventory lists "a good and sufficient missal sent there from the treasury of St Paul's"; two graduals; a badly bound tropary; an old lectionary; an anthem book; a psalter but not the expected manual. Valuables included a small silver chalice; a red velvetchasuble; two vestments; three corporals; five altar cloths; an arras cloth; an old chrismatory; two brass and two tin candlesticks; and a font without a lock. The chancel roof needed repairing, and the church was at the time not dedicated. Visitations were repeated in 1297 and 1458.
Architecture
The current church dates from 1882–84, when it was rebuilt to a design by the architect John Loughborough Pearson, except for the west tower which was built for William Bordall. Because of the small distance between the tower and the road at Church Street, Pearson made the nave short but wide, so it is nearly square in plan. The Duke of Devonshire gave £1,000 for the rebuilding, but most of the cost was paid for by Henry Smith of the nearby Griffin Brewery company, Fuller, Smith & Turner. The church is built of courses of squared Kentish ragstone masonry in the Perpendicular style. It has a stone coping with a copper roof. Inside the church, surviving 15th-century features include the tall archway to the west tower and the hoodmould over the window above the west door.
Monuments
Inside the church
Among the monuments in the church are:
Ralph Wenwood, d. 1799, wall tablet in swag surround
Sir Thomas Chaloner, d. 1615, and his two wives, d. 1603 and 1615, heraldic achievement over baldachino, stone curtains held open by figures on sides; kneeling figures of Sir Thomas and his wife
James Howard, d. 1669, flaming urn on Ionic aedicule, inscription panel
Thomas Plucknett, d. 1721, broken pediment and Ionic aedicule
John Taylor, d. 1729, open pediment, heraldic achievement in tympanum over Ionic aedicule
Thomas Tomkins, d. 1816, tablet with medallion portrait
Charles Barnevett, d. 1695, pedimented wall tablet
John Beckwith, d. 1815, rectangular fluted tablet
In the churchyard and burial ground
Among the monuments in the churchyard and the adjacent burial ground are:
Ugo Foscolo, d. 1812, Italian writer, poet and patriot. In 1871, his remains were taken to Italy, but inscriptions were added to the monument in Chiswick by the Italian government, as part of its campaign of glorification of the new Italian republic.
Percy Harris,, Liberal Party politician. His monument is Grade II* listed. The relief carving by Edward Bainbridge Copnall depicts the resurrection of the dead; it was carved in the late 1920s and acquired by Harris for display in his garden at Morton House, Chiswick Mall.
