Church Of Saint Andrew

Church of Saint Andrew

Church. This is a very fine early 13th-century chancel with a west tower of 1450-54, nave with aisles, porch, and south chancel chapel of about 1860.

The exterior is constructed of graduated ashlar to the west tower and squared rubble to the nave and chancel, the latter partly rendered, with an ornamental slate roof. The church comprises a 3-stage west tower, 4-bay aisled nave with south porch, and 3-bay chancel with north chapel.

The west tower rises from a high plinth with diagonal buttresses. Its west elevation displays a pointed door with continuous hollow chamfer beneath a 3-light pointed window with Perpendicular tracery under a hoodmould. A canopied niche contains a statue of Saint Andrew holding his cross. An angel with shield supports a mid-wall pilaster buttress flanked by gargoyles over the belfry opening. The belfry has 3-light 4-centred arched openings with Perpendicular tracery, and the parapet is crenellated with 8 crocketed finials.

The nave has a low plinth and buttresses with offsets. It has three pointed 3-light windows with intersecting cusped tracery and hoodmoulds to the east of the porch and a lancet to the west. Four 3-light square-headed windows with cusped ogee tracery light the clerestory. A pointed door in Early English style opens from the south porch. The north aisle contains 4 reset 3-light windows with Perpendicular tracery.

The chancel has a low chamfered plinth and angle buttresses with offsets. Its south elevation has 6 lancets; between the first and second is a pointed priests' door with continuous narrow chamfer. A triple-stepped lancet under a 19th-century quatrefoil lights the east end. Late 13th-century lancets and a priests' door, all reset, are in the north chancel chapel.

Interior: A pointed double-chamfered tower arch dies into responds. The early 13th-century north arcade comprises 4 pointed double-chamfered arches on round abaci and cylindrical piers with low moulded bases with spurs. The early 14th-century south arcade has 4 pointed double-chamfered arches on octagonal abaci and piers with triple-stepped bases of unusual design. The early 13th-century pointed chancel arch sits on moulded corbels and plain responds. North and south chancel windows have pointed double hollow-chamfered rear arches on a moulded impost band; the triple-stepped east window has slender detached colonettes carrying the rear arches, stilted to the centre window. A 19th-century 2-bay north chancel arcade to the Sykes mortuary chapel has pointed double-chamfered arches on octagonal abacus and pier.

The remains of an early 14th-century timber screen fill the western arch to the chancel north chapel and also the tower arch. In the north chapel is a pointed, moulded door opening of 3 filleted orders on nook-shafts with trefoil mouchettes in roundels to the spandrels, rebated to take a door. Remnants of this screen in the tower arch largely consist of reticulated tracery on turned colonnettes over later plain panelling. A 19th-century door leads to the tower chamber.

A dodecagonal font of plain design with a dogtooth band dates to about 1860.

The church is remarkable for a large number of late 18th and early 19th-century monuments. The chief among these includes the following: a monument to Joseph Sykes, died 1805, by John Bacon Junior, on the north chancel wall. This consists of an inscribed marble tablet on a plinth, above which is a lunette panel containing 3 small allegorical figures flanked to the right by a figure of Commerce holding a caduceus and to the left by bales, tools, and a compass. A full-rigged ship sails away over the lunette panel, crowned by weighing-scales and a sword. Above all this, Sykes himself emerges from his shattered coffin among rocks while an angel blows the Last Trump over him. This composition is flanked by pilasters capped with burning lamps. Two early 19th-century Gothic memorials in the mortuary chapel each have an inscription beneath a canopy with crocketed gablet and finial, dating from 1826 and 1827. A monument to Mrs Seaman and her 2 daughters in the tower chamber, erected 1769, features 3 portrait medallions hanging from carved stone nails over a drape with an inscription, all framed under a segmental pediment on black marble Ionic shafts standing on a plinth supported by consoles. A series of 4 inscribed wall tablets with urns, portrait medallions, or coats of arms line the walls of the tower. More such monuments, many with sarcophagi over inscribed tablets, appear throughout the body of the church, several in the Gothic style of about 1830. All these monuments reflect the popularity of the area among wealthy Hull merchant families of the period.