The Parish Church Of St Andrew

The Parish Church of St Andrew

An Anglican church built between 1878 and 1880, designed by F Doyle, and extended in 1998. The building is constructed of rock-faced dressed coursed stone with ashlar quoins and dressings, beneath a graduated slate roof. It is designed in gothic style with angle buttresses and a plinth. The plan comprises a single-bay chancel, north and south transepts, a tower, nave and aisles, a porch to the north, an attached vestry, and a community hall added to the south side in 1998.

The chancel contains a tri-partite drop-arch east window with hood mould, flanked by single drop-arch windows on either side. The north transept features a tri-partite drop-arch window in its gable end. The south transept has a two-light four-centred arch window on the east side and a rose window in the gable end above a linked arched doorway to the vestry. The vestry is a square hipped-roofed building with a three-light traceried window set in a square surround.

The north aisle features a drop-arched door adjacent to the transept and windows alternating between two and three lights, separated by buttresses. The south aisle adjoins the 1998 hall. The nave has paired clerestorey windows, those nearest the chancel decorated with plate tracery. A porch at the west end of the north transept has a gabled end, drop-arched doorway, and wooden door. The tower at the west end is finished with a battlemented parapet and contains a four-sided clock with a louvred window below and a stair turret in the north-east corner. The large west window of the tower is drop-arched with three lights and a double plinth beneath, with two slit windows above in the tower.

Internally, the chancel displays stained glass in its tri-partite east window and a white marble reredos with cusped niches, finials, and carved figures positioned behind the altar. The chancel contains decoratively carved wooden choir stalls and a wooden reading desk carved in the shape of an eagle. An octagonal pulpit of white marble with relief-carved panels and coloured marble shafts stands in the nave. The nave arcade comprises plain columns with capitals carved with foliage, supporting wide drop-arched openings to the aisles. Original wooden bench pews line the nave and aisles. The windows of the aisles and north transept contain good quality stained glass; a window in the west wall of the south aisle was transferred from the south wall when a new doorway was created into the 1998 hall.

The south transept is separated from the rest of the church by carved wood and glass screens, including a door with geometric patterned stained glass leading to the vestry. The vestry has a pyramidal roof structure with exposed converging trusses and simple plate tracery to its windows. The nave roof features scissor-beam trusses supported on corbels above the arcade columns, while the aisles have lean-to ceilings. The west end of the nave opens to the tower through a large arched opening with a tri-partite window above. The tower area has been partitioned with a glass screen to create a children's space. The west window contains stained glass with a brass plaque below commemorating the dead of the First World War. A door to the tower stair leads to a chamber above, which displays exposed snecked stone and brick arched lintels to slit windows, containing the exposed workings of the clock.

The church opened in 1880, built to replace a much smaller church that still stands in the grounds, now known as the Unsworth Chapel. This earlier chapel, listed Grade II*, dates to around 1400. A community hall was built on the south side of the church in 1998.

The church represents a good example of late nineteenth-century gothic style, featuring excellent stained glass and finely executed fittings that combine to create a harmonious composition. It forms part of a well-balanced group of listed structures in the semi-rural setting.