Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

A parish church of limestone ashlar and rubble construction with Collyweston slate and lead roofs, dating from the 12th century with significant additions and alterations in the 14th, 15th, and later centuries. The building comprises a west tower and spire, nave, chancel, north and south aisles, north chapel, vestry and south porch. The spire was repaired in 1810 and 1908, and the church was restored with a vestry added between 1890 and 1895.

The tall three-stage 14th-century tower is distinguished by a moulded plinth, chamfered string courses and stepped gabled setback buttresses. It rises to a broach spire with three tiers of lucarnes in alternating directions—the lowest tier featuring paired shafted openings, all gabled. The belfry stage contains tall paired louvred lights with deeply shafted and moulded pointed surrounds and bold flowing tracery to the heads. The middle stage has plain rectangular lights, while the lowest stage on the west side alone displays a two-light window with curvilinear tracery forming mouchettes and a quatrefoil above. The west ends of the aisles are lit by single, simpler matching two-light windows.

The north aisle has a moulded plinth, stepped buttresses and a lead roof. It features a continuously moulded doorway with hood and human head stops, beyond which is a three-light window with curvilinear tracery forming cusped mouchettes and a quatrefoil. The north chapel, built of rubble with ashlar dressings and a slate roof, contains a blocked doorway now covered by an added buttress. To either side are tall two-light windows with Y-tracery and cusped heads in chamfered surrounds, while to the east stands a tall three-light window with cusped intersecting tracery in a chamfered pointed surround. A low 19th-century boiler house stands on the north side of the chancel.

The chancel features a tall four-light east window with fine flowing tracery, elegantly cusped with daggers and a quatrefoil. Its south wall contains three three-light windows with reticulated tracery in pointed hollow chamfered surrounds, along with a small priest's door in a simple chamfered surround with a pointed head. The south aisle has three-light windows matching those in the chancel, with one to the east and three to the south. The gabled south porch displays an elaborately cusped and decorated outer arch incorporating seaweed carving and naturalistic leaves. The reveals are shafted and hollow moulded, with a moulded head set in a triangular frame with a foliate terminal. The inner doorway is more restrained, featuring a continuously wave-moulded surround with human head stops.

The interior contains tall three-bay nave arcades with filleted quatrefoil piers and annular capitals, supporting double chamfered arches with hollow moulded hoods. The arch-braced roof is 19th-century work. The tower base opens to the nave through a massive triple-chamfered arch with engaged shafted reveals and annular imposts, with a four-centred arched doorway above. The sides of the tower contain matching triple-chamfered arches. A piscina in a plain square surround survives in the south aisle.

The north chapel contains a trefoil-headed piscina in its east wall and an 18th-century wooden cupboard in the south wall. The sumptuous chancel, described as a scaled-down version of nearby Heckington, features a double-chamfered arch with annular reveals opening to the north chapel in its north wall. Further along is a founder's tomb niche and a four-centred arched doorway, followed by an Easter sepulchre in the form of a triangular-headed aumbry with flanking crocketted pinnacles and a gablet above. The south side displays a fine triple sedilia with shafted reveals to the compartments, cusped ogee heads and gablets with foliate terminals, beyond which stands a trefoil-headed piscina with a matching gablet.

The furnishings include an elaborate 19th-century reredos to the altar featuring limewood figures of The Sower and The Good Shepherd set in gilded niches. Oak altar rails and a gate of turned bobbin type are dated 1702. A memorable early 14th-century rood screen features a wider central opening beneath a four-centred arch with three flanking panels on either side, each with cusped ogee heads, crockets, trefoiled panels and pointed heads. Only two traceried lower panels survive, with traces of red painted decoration visible on another; two are 18th-century raised and fielded panel replacements. A matching though fragmentary side screen serves the north chapel. The contemporary oak pulpit reuses an early 18th-century cornice. A handsome 16th-century chest in the south aisle features a cambered lid, iron bands, lavish paterae and arcaded chip carving. A 14th-century octagonal tub font displays blind panels of reticulated tracery and fleurons to its sides. The base is formed from a massive section of an early 12th-century shaft, possibly from an earlier font, enriched with pelleted intersecting arcades and fleurons. Four oak choir benches and a prayer desk are contemporary with the font, featuring moulded muntins and fleur de lys ends. The aisle windows were painted by W. F. Dixon of London in 1883.

The monuments include a 14th-century tomb niche in the north chapel with an elaborately moulded head and gablet containing a jousting helm and blank shield. The recess holds an elevated carving of a recumbent knight in plate armour with surcoat, lion feet, pot helmet, and a missing sword, though the sword belt retains a lion buckle. The north aisle contains a limestone wall monument to Henry Pell, died 1667, featuring a square tablet with advanced Composite columns supporting an entablature bearing a pair of obelisks, all resting on scrolled console brackets. The chancel's early 14th-century founder's tomb recess, with its continuously moulded arched head, pinnacles and gablet, now contains an effigy of the 12th Earl of Winchelsea, died 1898, clad in state robes. Various rectangular brass panels with raised letter inscriptions commemorate members of the Finch Hatton family, Earls of Winchelsea and Nottingham. A white marble wall tablet honours George William, 10th Earl, died 1858.