Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew, Hartburn

A parish church with a Pre-Conquest core, substantially rebuilt and extended during the medieval period, then restored in the 19th century. The building is constructed of squared stone with stone dressings and slate roofs, except for stone slates to the south porch and boiler house.

The church comprises a 4-bay aisled nave with a west tower and south porch, together with a chancel. The tower is arranged in 3 stages with a moulded plinth and strings, and features stepped set-back buttresses. The west window, dating to the 15th century, is a 3-light window with pierced panel tracery. The 2nd stage contains wide lancets, blocked except on the south side. Paired lancet belfry openings have octagonal column mullions. The parapet sits on stepped corbels.

The west aisle has lancet windows, with the northern one partly obscured by a 19th-century boiler house. The south aisle wall contains 5 bays and the north aisle 4 bays, both with 19th-century paired lancets. The south porch features a 19th-century pointed arch set within larger round-headed double-chamfered openings. It has 18th-century panelled double doors and a coped gable with an 18th-century tilted sundial as finial. Small rectangular windows appear in the returns, and stone benches are present. The doorway has a keeled and chamfered pointed arch with colonnettes, bold dog tooth decoration on the hoodmould, and jambs and external angles of the door projection. A clerestory on the south side comprises 3 low 2-light mullioned windows. The east aisles have lancets, and a 1757 headstone is affixed to the south aisle wall.

The massive eastern angle quoins of the Pre-Conquest nave are exposed on the south side, where they are tooled to resemble coursed masonry. The chancel is arranged in 3 bays with lancets on the south and a low-side lancet at the west end. Traces of a blocked door appear to the right, and an old studded priest's door sits beneath a shouldered arch. The east end has a triplet of lancets. Stepped buttress bay divisions run throughout.

Internally, a small doorway beneath a round-headed window is set in a blocked round tower arch, an insertion itself, with remains of an earlier arched doorway above. The lower stage of the tower is barrel-vaulted with a newel stair at the north-west angle. The nave arcades are pointed double-chamfered and rest on octagonal piers with moulded capitals and bases; the central pier on the south has a beaded abacus. The south aisle east lancet has an elaborate shouldered rear arch. A trefoiled piscina appears in the south aisle, and a smaller piscina is cut into the east respond of the north arcade.

The pointed chancel arch is of 2 orders. The chancel contains an enriched trefoiled piscina, triple sedilia, and a second smaller trefoiled piscina. The eastern lancets have tall ringed jamb shafts and moulded rear arches.

The 13th-century font is circular with a pillar bowl and 3 smaller shafts. Memorials include a Frosterley marble slab in the chancel with Lombardic inscription to Sir Thomas de Errington, dating to around 1310, together with 17th and 18th-century ledger stones. A monument to Mary Ann Bradford, died 1830, features a reclining figure by F. Chantrey. Other 19th-century memorial slabs are present. A carved reredos and pulpit of Caen stone date to 1890. Flags from the Napoleonic War hang in the chancel. Medieval stone coffins and a Jacobean almsbox are located in the south aisle. Two medieval bells are present. Several re-used voussoirs with incised saltire crosses, similar to those of the 8th-century west doorway at Corbridge, appear above the nave arcades.

The building underwent restoration in 1843 and 1890. The tower and chancel were rebuilt around 1200, aisles were added and the chancel extended in the early 13th century, with minor later medieval alterations.