Church of St Nicholas in Fyfield

Seventeen members of the Churches & Pubs Group visited the Church of St Nicholas in Fyfield on 7th November. Our guide, Ian Bensted, told us that the first part of the Church to be built was the nave, in around 1170. The Domesday Book recorded a church in 1086, so it was assumed that there had been an earlier, Saxon church at Fyfield, though no trace of it survives. Later, in ca 1170, the chancel was built by Sir John Golafre.

Our guide took us on a tour of the Church and pointed out several interesting features, including the tomb of Lady Katherine Gordon, a Scottish Princess who married Perkin Warbeck, one of the pretenders to the throne of England; and the “memento mori” monument to Sir John Golafre’s grandson (also Sir John).