Â鶹Éç

This striking building stands on the corner of The Cross and St Nicholas Street, and is now part of restaurant chain, a sign of the more secular society of the early 21st century.

Things were very different in the 18th century, when St Nicholas Church was rebuilt at the staggering cost of £3,345 – that’s more than £500,000 in today’s money.

Picture: Worcester Records Office

This incredible sum was raised in loans, a special rate, and even by renting out the pews to those willing to pay for the same seat every Sunday.

The parishioners certainly got something very distinctive for their money – the building doesn't have the tradition square tower or pointed steeple of so many other English churches.

Instead the tower is a three stage design, capped with what looks like a miniature temple, a design that wouldn't look out of place in Wren’s London.

The entrance was once more spectacular than it is today, with two flights of steps on either side of platform in front of the main entrance - this was removed to allow the street to be widened.

Before the church was decommissioned a short, but very comprehensive, history was written by E.C Baker – a copy of which can still be found in the nearby Worcester History Centre.

This records how St Nicholas church established the first Sunday school in the city, in 1785.

Berrow’s Journal for 2 January 1794 records how "the benevolent institution of St Nicholas Sunday school regaled 60 children on Christmas Day, with a plentiful dinner of roast beef, plum pudding, etc."

Buried in the tower

The history also tells the strange tale of Alderman Benjamin Baker, and his sister-in- law, Mrs Mitchell.

The walls of the church tower are very thick, and when his sister-in-law died, in 1761, Alderman Baker took it upon himself to hollow out a vault for her body in the church tower.

Picture: Worcester Records Office

As he'd asked no-one's permission for this unusual burial, there was an understandable outcry.

This died down though, when Alderman Baker gave the parish £20 (£3,000 today).

Apart from Mrs Mitchell and a large clock, the tower also has a peel of six bells, though these haven't been rung since the 1930s, due to an attack of death watch beetle in the timbers supporting them.

During a restoration in 1948 a solution was found, that enabled the bells to be sounded again – hammers were installed, operated by ropes on a frame in the belfry, a method known as an Ellacombe Apparatus.

St Nicholas did have a wooden plaque commemorating those who died in WWII – when the church was decommissioned this was moved to All Saints Church, Deansway,