Monument, alabaster with black marble tablet, to Sir Edward Nicolls, Baronet (1619-1682), Northamtonshire, ca. 1682

Gypsum alabaster funerary monument to Sir Edward Nicolls with an inscription in latin. A black marble slab bearing a Latin epitaph is set in an elaborate framework of alabasrer, with volutes at each side and a cherub's head with wings underneath. The whole is surmounted by a large cartouch with the Nicolls arms.

From the demolished church of St Denis, Faxton, Northamptonshire.

Historical significance: The hamlet of Faxton, is an abandoned village and chapelry in the county of Northamptonshire in England in a remote position two miles to the north-east of Lamport. In the Domesday Book it was a village of thirty-two families. By 1801 the total population was 54. By 1841 it had risen to 108 but by 1921 it was 37. No one lives in the village now. in 1939 services in the church came to an end. Eventually lead was stripped from the roof and in 1958 it was demolished as a 'dangerous structure'. The wall monuments were removed in pieces to the stables of Lamport rectory. In 1965, the Museum agreed to accept the monuments in the rectory stables as a gift. By then they were in poor condition and the reassembly of the monument was laborious and complex.
Three memorials in Faxton church have not come to the Museum. A plain slabe to Elizabeth Framwell, who died in 1781, has been included in the paving round the base of the column that marks the site of Faxton church. Another simple slab to Susanna Danvers, who died in 1730, daughter of Sir Edward Nicolls, second baronet, has disappeared, although it was photographed by the National Buildings Record in 1945. The monument to Hester Raynsfor, born Isham, who died in 1763, was installed in the Ishal chapel in Lamport church. It was executed by William Cox of Northampton (b. 1717, d. 1793).

Sir Edward Nicolls (1619-1682), second baronet was a leading supporter of the parliamentary cause in the English Civil War. The monument to him and his two wives, surmounted by his coat of arms, was originally in the church of St Denis, Faxton, a hamlet near Lamport in Northamptonshire. The coat of arms and imposing Baroque scrolls indicate the prestige of the family while the inscription refers to Sir Edward's many virtues and his 'continual domestic and hereditary splendour'. The church became redudant in 1939, and was eventually demolished in 1958. The monument, along with two others from the Nicolls' family, was however taken to safety and given to the Museum in 1965. The other funerary monuments (Museum nos. A.9-1965 and A.11-1965) commemorate Sir Augustine Nicolls (1559-1616), Sir Edward's great-uncle, and John Nicolls Raynsford (1723-1746), another relative.

A.10-1965