Description:
A church of St. Nicholas was erected on the site of the present building soon after the Conquest, and it seems to have been very like the St. Peter's Church that we know. Whatever its appearance, it did its work usefully and quietly as a parish church until 1642 during the English Civil War. Colonel Huchinson held Nottingham Castle for the Parliament, and was attacked by a body of Newark people acting for the King. They were almost successful in their attempt but not quite. However, they established themselves in the tower of the old St. Nicholas Church, and proceeded to bombard the garrison of the Castle with such effect that when they were finally dislodged, Colonel Hutchinson felt that he dare not expose his men to a repetition of the experience, and so caused the old church to be completely destroyed.
The homeless congregation were accommodated in a loft over St. Peter's Chancel but they were once more rendered homeless by a fresh bombardment, for thirty-five years the site of St. Nicholas remained vacant, but in 1678 a fresh start was made and a new church was erected, the nucleus of today's building. No illustration is known to exist of the earlier building. Following is an extract from White's Directory of Nottinghamshire 1853:-'St Nicholas' Church is a neat, brick edifice ornamented with stone, and like St Peter's, shaded by a number of trees. It occupies a pleasant situation on the south side of Castlegate (it should be remembered that Maid Marion Way did not exist until the 1960s), whence its large burial ground extends to Chesterfield Street and Rosemary Lane.
The building was commenced in 1671, and finished in 1678, on the site of an ancient fabric which was destroyed in 1647 when a party of royalists took possession of it, and from the steeple so annoyed the parliamentarians in the castle, that they could not 'play the ordnance without the woolsacks before them', and the bullets from the church 'played so thick into the outward castle yard, that they could not pass from one gate to another, nor relieve the guards without very great hazard'. The church, however, was soon set on fire, and the royalist obliged to fly from its falling ruins.
The present edifice has a light and airy appearance, and has a tower with one bell, at the west end. It has a spacious nave and two side aisles, the southernmost of which was much enlarged by subscription in 1756; and a similar extension of the north aisle took place in 1733, when £500 was raised for the purpose. It has since been new paved and ornamented with a handsome pulpit and a reading desk, and also with a new gallery on the north side. The organ was erected in 1811.Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth.
Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today.
Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'.