Wells-next-the-Sea is mentioned several times in the Domesday book of 1086, by which time it was clearly already a substantial place, but no church was mentioned. In 1202 Ramsey abbey obtained a charter allowing it to expand the port, but the church stands a little way outside the early C13th planned town by the harbour, and was certainly already well established by the early C13th.
The Grade II* listed church is dedicated to St.Nicholas and is Perpendicular in origin, but was badly damaged in a fire in 1879 and almost wholly rebuilt to designs of Herbert Green the diocesan architect. There is no fabric surviving from pre-Perpendicular times but the tower is C15th and from this and some other surviving C15th fragments the Medieval church was substantial and well detailed. The extent to which Green's post-fire restoration replicated what was there is not clear, but loose fragments in the church, which are more complex in their detailing than Green's work, suggest that he considerably simplified the architecture in many places. The cost of the work was £7,000 and the church was re-dedicated in 1883. An additional £2,000 was spent in 1887 on the organ, the pews, the bells and completing the south porch. The north-west vestry was added in 1966.
The church is built in flint with stone dressings to a 'large' plan, chancel with north and south aisles, nave with north and south aisles, west tower, a rood stair turret at the north side, a south porch and a north-west vestry. It has lead and slate roofs. It is a large town church, wholly Perpendicular in style and with some evidence for the pre-fire form of the building.
The tall west tower has offset buttresses and is largely C15th. The embattled parapet has blind, panelled tracery, and the west doorway has rows of stylised flowers, mostly original. There is a fairly heavy ring of eight bells in the tower hung for ringing in the English style, and one clock bell, all cast by John Taylor & Co. of Loughborough.
The clerestoried nave, aisles and chancel have no parapets. The windows are all C15th in style and have vertical tracery in a range of patterns. The chancel windows have external jamb shafts, the bases apparently C15th, the rest wholly renewed with an enormous east window.
The fine south porch is in a C15th style with an embattled parapet similar to that on the tower. The rood stair turret is also embattled. Changes in the masonry on the north side are probably the result of post-fire rebuilding, and suggest that the lower parts of the walls survived largely intact.
The interior is wholly Perpendicular in style, but was almost entirely rebuilt after the fire. The nave arcades have arches of two orders with many fine mouldings on piers with four attached shafts with polygonal, moulded capitals and high, moulded bases. Hood moulds with large carved angels hold shields above each pier forming a termination for shafts descending from the roof. The chancel arch is similar, and the tower arch has an inner order like the nave arcades and a continuous outer order but with the single arches to the chancel chapels being simpler. The chancel windows have shafted arches, the bases of the shafts apparently C15th, and there is a fine late C15th or early C16th door in the chancel, the door original and the surround, with a vine scroll, possibly also original and it is very red and appears fire damaged.
Only a few fittings survived the fire; a few loose architectural fragments, notably several bases of pillars; a small brass plate above the north chancel door to Thomas Bradley, rector 1446-99; the excellent late C15th/early C16th door in the chancel, with blind tracery, slightly charred in places; A very fine and large C16th brass eagle lectern; a chest dated 1637. Otherwise the fittings are late C19th; a Perpendicular style font, octagonal with quatrefoils on the bowl and nodding ogees on the stem; nave benches with carved, shaped ends and good poppy heads in a range of patterns; C19th encaustic tiles with geometric patterns in the chancel. Very good C19th roofs, the chancel roof is arch braced with carved angels on the posts, at the junctions with the purlins and the ridge, and on the wall plates. The wall plates and purlins are embattled, and there is open tracery in the spandrel between the braces and the ridge. The nave roof is similar, with alternate trusses descending on shafts between the clerestory windows. The south aisle roof is lean-to with moulded principals and open arched braces with short posts on stone corbels. The north aisle roof is also lean-to, but has short, curved braces with carved spandrels on moulded corbels, and additional braces forming four-centred arches against the walls.
Words from British Listed Buildings and Pevsner's Norfolk 1 Buildings with amendments from own on site observations.
Coordinates are for the south porch entrance.