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History of St Nicolas Place
St Nicolas Place with its black and white timber buildings set on a quaint village green is a popular choice for weddings and is steeped in history.
The church of St Nicolas has been on the site since the 11th century. The Normans first built a small chapel and the current church dates from the early 13th century.
Militant suffragettes aimed to attack the Old Grammar School in April 1913 and two windows were forced open at the school, but no fire was started. A message on the blackboard read: “Two suffragists have entered here, but charmed with this old-world room, have refrained from their design of destruction.”
The oldest part of the site, the Tudor Merchant's House, was built in 1492 by a wealthy merchant, Humphrey Rotsey. In 1643, Queen Henrietta Maria of France stopped in the village with an army on her way to rejoin King Charles I at his HQ in York, it is believed that she stayed in the building.
By the 20th century Mitchells & Butlers owned both the Bulls Head and the Saracens Head and, in 1930, donated the Saracen's Head to the village as a Parish Hall.
We move into the ground floor Small Hall in November 2020 to use as our expanded Foodbank in response to the increased demand for support during the Pandemic. After restrictions were lifted in April 2021 we also moved our Future Proof and Northfield Families Projects into the building as we didn't have enough office space in our Northfield Town Centre Hub.
Moving into Saint Nicolas Place allowed the building to remain open as the Church were going to have to close it due to the cost of maintaining the historic features.
