Church Heritage Record 628223

Nave and chancel, south porch with tower above, north vestry.

Nave 10x5m, chancel 5m long.

Medieval site with burials since the 12th century, marked graves from the 18th. Burials from the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods and foundations and other features related to the church can be expected on the site. Remains of chantry chapel on the south side may survive.

Tickencote is mentioned in Domesday book of 1086.

The VCH records:  The first authenticated mention of the advowson is found in the confirmation by Robert de Chesney, Bishop of Lincoln (1147–1168), of the gift of Robert Grimbald of the church of Tickencote to the priory of Austin Canons at Owston (co. Leic.). In 1234 the abbot of Owston presented to the church after acknowledgment of his right had been made by Robert Grimbald and his tenant William le Daneys. In 1300 Brice le Daneys after suit renounced his claim to the right of presentation and the abbot and convent of Owston presented and continued to do so until the dissolution of that house.

The last presentation was in 1528. In 1553 the king granted to William Fitz William and Arthur Hilton (inter alia) the advowson and rectory of Tickencote, which in 1553 the grantees conveyed to John Campynett. John Campynett presented in 1556 and his brother, William Campynett, in 1563 and Gaspar Hunt in 1568. The Bishop presented on the next two occasions, and in 1623 John Wingfield presented, and the advowson has since descended with the manor.

The village was formerly the location of Tickencote Hall, built 1705 and demolished 1950. This was the seat of the Wingfield family who carried out much of the restoration of the church.  The family no longer lives in the village.

The church is quite unique in several respects. The highpoint is the partly rebuilt Norman chancel, whereby it is recorded that as much of the original material was re-used as possible in 1792, in comparison to the total rebuild of the nave. It is possible to reconstruct the appearance prior to the restoration from descriptions and drawings made at the time, as the church elicited a good deal of discussion among noted architects and antiquarians including Sharpe and Stukeley. The church has continued to be a focus of debate since.

Chancel

Externally the chancel is of two bays lighted on each side by two round-headed windows. The external north and south elevations consist each of four bays, formed by tall half-round buttresses, and are divided horizontally into three well-marked stages, with two more above in the east gable. At the eastern angles the buttresses form large, triple-clustered shafts extending to the middle of the third stage. The ground stage throughout is occupied by a wall-arcade consisting of intersecting semicircular moulded arches, one full arch to each bay, springing from jambshafts with moulded abaci only, middle-shafts with scalloped capitals, all with plain bases on a continuous chamfered plinth and sub-plinth.

The stringcourse above the arcade has a round between two quirks and forms the sills of the windows. The second stage is blank except for the windows, like the third stage on the north and south, the dividing stringcourse being decorated with a double billet. This string serves as a hood to the windows, and like the one below is taken round the buttresses. The window arches are of a single enriched moulded order on jambshafts with cushion capitals and moulded bases, the enrichment consisting of the same ornament as that used in the cornice.

The east façade is very elaborate and of four stages,  nearly every part being enriched with chevron, billet or other ornament, the only unrelieved surfaces being in the second stage.  The third stage is occupied by a series of four round-headed recesses, or blind windows, the arches decorated with double chevrons on jambshafts, with cushion capitals and moulded bases, and an outer continuous billet-moulded order. Above this the gable is divided into two more stages by enriched strings, the topmost triangular portion having three square-headed recesses with another above.

The fourth stage is occupied its full height by an arcade of continuous chevron moulded arches, on either side of a tall round-headed window, the sill of which is extended downward to the middle of the stage below. This window has two continuous lines of billet moulding, and an enriched sill supported by carved heads; there are also carved heads above and on either side of the opening. This upper window lights the roof space over the vault, which cuts across and blocks its lower portion, though the opening is now glazed its full height.  The middle buttress stops below the east window, but those on either side are taken, in receding stages, almost the full height of the wall.

Nave, porch and vestry

The design of the nave, which had previously been almost featureless, was based on that of the chancel, the lines of the sill string and cornice being carried all round the building, and the windows and buttresses are 'copied' from the older work. The nave is much plainer in character, with three windows on each side and one at the west end.

The entrance is at the east end of the south wall, covered by the porch-tower, with lofty round-headed doorway of three orders which has a more neo-classical than neo-Romanesque appearance.  The tympanum has an inscription recording that the church was 'repaired' by Eliza Wingfield in 1792 'with that true sense of religion and reverence for her Maker which ever distinguished her life.' The tower is of three stages, with four tall round-headed openings on the south side in the upper stage. The vestry on the north side is almost featureless, except for as noted above the string courses taken round.

Entry is via the south porch of 1792. Within, bare stone walls.  In the nave plain pews stand on the stone flagged floor.  The windows have hoods with large head stops. C19 barrel-vaulted nave roof carried on grotesque heads.

The undoubted highpoint of the church is the outstanding round-headed (though now depressed due to the weight of the wall above and mistakes in its construction) chancel arch of 6 elaborately decorated orders on ornamental capitals. The innermost order is roll-moulded, the 2nd has beak-heads, the 3rd zig-zags and crenellations, the 4th various motifs - heads, figures, animals and foliage - the 5th zig-zag and the outermost stylized leaf mouldings surrounded by a billet-moulding.

There has been conjecture that the original Norman church was a single cell building and the chancel arch was in fact the main west doorway to the church. While attractive, the theory appears to be belied by the former existence, recorded before the restoration by Stukeley and others, of a 12th-century doorway forming the main south entrance within a shallow porch in the western bay, now lost, as is the blocked doorway opposite.

The chancel within has a sexpartite rib-vault, perhaps c.1160-70 or even earlier and of its type unique in England, seemingly a direct import from Normandy with no English precedents or parallels. The ribs have zig-zag moulding and are carried on stumpy columns with ornamental capitals (the central column to the south is replaced by a taller semi-octagonal shaft, symptomatic of the rebuild here, see discussion of chantry chapel below). Central boss with monk’s head and 2 muzzled bears' heads.

Traces of the blocked entrance to a stair to a priest's chamber above the vault, which apparently still exists, in north east corner.

Piscine in the south wall, 13th-century. Late 13th or early 14th-century tomb recess in the north wall, reset here in 1792, contains a wooden effigy of a knight in armour. This is traditionally considered to be Sir Roland le Daneys, who fought for Edward III in France. Le Daneys represented Rutland in Edward's Great Parliament of 1352.  He is said to have had the chantry chapel on the south side of the chancel built in 1361 (this date may be related to the last mention of him and may be unreliable), there is now no trace of this in the fabric after the south wall was rebuilt and given the same arcaded treatment externally as the original north wall, although the new column to the rib-vault here described above gives the game away.