The church was added to the gateway of the already-existing Benedictine Abbey of Saint Mary around the year 1170, although the oldest remaining piece is reportedly from 1180.

[1] While the monks used the abbey church, St Nicolas's was built for their lay servants and tenants.

The Normans propagated the cult of Saint Nicholas and many English churches are named after him.

The earliest documentary evidence of this church's existence is in a ruling about tithes in 1177 by Pope Alexander III.

Saint Edmund of Abingdon worshipped there as a child and his mother was initially buried there.