Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

This parish church dates from the 14th, 15th, 16th and 19th centuries. It is built of squared chalk, ironstone and limestone rubble with some brick patching, and has lead roofs concealed behind plain parapets.

The building comprises a western tower, nave, chancel, north aisle and vestry, south porch and chapel. The tower's lower two stages are constructed of chalk, whilst the topmost stage dates to the 19th century and is built of ironstone. The tower features corner buttresses, a plinth, two string courses and a plain parapet, with paired 19th-century belfry lights facing in four directions.

The 14th-century west window contains two trefoil-headed lights with a quatrefoil above and a double chamfered surround. A 16th-century three-light west aisle window has rectilinear panels and a square single chamfered surround. The north aisle wall contains a two-light 14th-century window that was recut in the 19th century, a blocked single chamfered pointed doorway, and a 19th-century three-light window with a square chamfered surround. The aisle's east wall has a two-light 14th-century window with a cusped ogee head, square surround and hood.

The chancel's north window is 15th-century with cusped heads to the two lights, panel tracery, a four-centred arch and hood mould. The ashlar vestry has a two-light 19th-century east window. The chancel's east window is 15th-century with three lights featuring cusped heads, panel tracery and a cambered hooded head. The chancel's south side has two matching 15th-century two-light windows.

In the south chapel, the east window is 14th-century with two ogee-headed lights and a square surround. The south window is 19th-century with three lights; another 19th-century two-light window occupies the west wall. The nave's south wall has two two-light windows with 19th-century tracery flanking the 15th-century gabled porch, which features a plain parapet and moulded coping. The porch's cambered outer arch has a continuous double chamfered surround. Inside the porch are side benches and an ogee-headed light to the west. The 14th-century inner doorway has a continuous moulded surround containing fleurons, beasts and human heads including a wild man, a crocketed hood with foliate terminal and human head labels. The door is likely contemporary and retains a fixing for a closing ring.

Interior features include a 14th-century double chamfered tower arch that dies into its reveals. The 15th-century north nave arcade comprises three bays with distinctive hollow chamfered octagonal piers, reeded capitals and single chamfered arches. On the south side, a 14th-century double chamfered arch dies into its reveals and opens into the south chapel; the chancel arch is similar. The nave roof is 19th-century but rests on earlier grotesque corbels, two of which have been reset in the nave's east wall. The south chapel contains a square piscina.

At the east end of the north arcade stands a richly carved reset 14th-century canopy, presumably from a statue niche. It is octagonal in form with cusped ogee arches, a ribbed underside and a moulded and embattled top. The chancel contains a 14th-century piscina with a cusped ogee head, a square aumbry on the north side, and a statue bracket. Fragments of 15th-century stained glass survive in the chancel's side windows.

Most fittings date to the 19th century. The font is a recut 14th-century example with a drain. The church contains a late 18th-century hatchment on the north aisle wall and a limestone ledger slab with sunken relief of a priest in vestments and a marginal inscription recording the death of Gilbert de Cumberworth in 1373. Two further inscribed slabs are present, one in the vestry and one in the aisle, both dating to 1705. On the nave's west wall are two mid-18th-century pedimented wall plaques commemorating members of the Sapfford and Harrold families, and three early 19th-century white marble plaques in the Greek Taste.