ST. NICHOLAS' CHURCH - WOODRISING

The church at Woodrising is one of two churches in the area dedicated to St. Nicholas; the other, which also features in this guide, is at Ashill. The church building is largely late fourteenth century, with nineteenth and twentieth century restorations. The table tomb in the church is probably that of the family that contributed towards the building of the church, thought to be the de Witchingham family. A feature of the interior is the number of carved heads on the supports of the roof and the corbels both inside and outside the building.

Location and Early History

The church stands, almost un-noticed, at the back of a small triangular green, along a quiet country road. The house closest to it was once the village school. The church tower collapsed over 250 years ago and a bell now hangs in a thatched bell frame in the churchyard.

The earliest changes to the church appear to be the Tudor arches and decoration, and the Perpendicular windows. Later there were restorations in Victorian times, when the Rev. Arthur Roberts was rector; and in the years after the Second World War. These were brought about by Lord Verulam, who, in the tradition of earlier Lords of the Manor, set about restoring the prosperity of the village.

There is evidence of Roman occupation in the parish. An earlier building than the present Woodrising Hall stood on a site once occupied by the Romans, and there is a moated site within the grounds. There is ancient woodland to the south-west. The present hall is a twentieth-century building, hidden behind trees to the east of the road to Scoulton. It was built in the late 1950s to replace an eighteenth-century mansion, 'which time, and the British Army, left in crumbling ruins'.

The village today is little more than a cluster of farms and their associated buildings, now bereft of their usefulness by the progress of modern farming practices.

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