Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

This is a parish church of Late 12th-century origin, with significant additions and alterations spanning the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. The church was substantially rebuilt in 1737–8 by George Portwood, underwent restoration in 1874, and further restoration in 1912. The building comprises a clerestoried nave, aisles, south porch, transepts and south tower, with chancel. It is constructed in ashlar with lead and Collyweston roofs.

The west end of the nave features a moulded plinth and band, with short stepped and gabled buttresses having crockets and projecting heads. The gable shows the steeper pitch of an earlier roof line. A double moulded parapet runs across. The 15th-century west window has 5 lights with cinquefoil heads and panel tracery, with a hood mould terminating in human head stops. The south aisle contains two 14th-century windows of three lights each, with flowing tracery and hood moulds. The north door has a continuously deeply moulded pointed surround. To its east is a small niche with triangular head and hood, with an inscribed cross below.

The north transept contains a 15th-century four-light window (recut in the 19th century) with panel tracery, and a 15th-century three-light window on its east side with moulded four-centred headed surround and 19th-century panel tracery. The clerestory has four 15th-century three-light windows with cusped heads to the lights, panel tracery and linked hood moulds.

The chancel, roofed in Collyweston tiles, has a three-light 15th-century window in its north wall with flat four-centred arched head and cusped ogee heads to the lights. Beyond this is a blocked doorway. The east window has three lights with recut panel tracery. The south wall of the chancel contains two 19th-century three-light windows and a small doorway.

The south transept contains a single three-light 18th-century window with semi-circular head.

The 18th-century south tower stands in three stages with clasping buttresses, three string courses, plain parapet and angle urns. It has a recessed spire with two tiers of ogee lucarnes with trefoils. The belfry stage features paired lancets in double chamfered semi-circular headed surrounds. In the south wall is a window with an apron and Gibbsian surround with stepped keyblock. The middle stage contains a cast iron faced clock set in a cruciform architrave, and above it an inscription records the building of the tower in 1738. The west wall has a doorway with plain chamfered surround and keyblock. The clerestory here matches that on the north side. In the south aisle are two 19th-century three-light windows—one within a 15th-century four-centred arched surround, the other within a 14th-century surround with moulded hood. The west wall contains a small round-headed light.

The 18th-century gabled south porch is in Romanesque style, modelled on the inner doorway, with a stepped and moulded outer round arch having paired collared nook shafts with waterleaf capitals. Above is a round-headed dogtoothed niche containing a statue of St. Andrew. The porch has side benches. The late 12th-century inner doorway has a stepped and chamfered rounded head with hood, and single nook shafts with waterleaf capitals. Above is a later niche containing a fragment of statuary.

Interior

The south arcade comprises four bays of late 12th-century work, restored in the 19th century, with circular piers on tall moulded bases, waterleaf capitals, double chamfered rounded arches and chamfered hood moulding with human and angel head stops. The four-bay north arcade is of 13th-century date, with double chamfered pointed arches, octagonal piers and responds, set on large 12th-century circular bases.

In the aisles are double chamfered arches opening into the transepts. The north transept contains a narrow squint to the main altar. The nave is roofed with a tie beam or crown post roof on 15th-century grotesque corbels. A 19th-century moulded and pointed chancel arch divides the nave from the chancel.

In the chancel east wall is a reset 13th-century pointed niche and an engaged octagonal column with stiff leaf foliage.

Fittings and monuments are largely of 19th and 20th-century date, including an oak rood screen of 1912. There are two chests, one dated 1683. Two 15th-century painted panels, depicting St. Stephen and St. Laurence, formerly in the rood screen, survive. An octagonal font of circa 1660 has foliage, chevrons and a cross to its panels, set on a 19th-century base. A 19th-century tall elaborate font cover is also present.

The chancel east wall contains a small brass to Robert Harrington (died 1558) and his wife Alice (died 1565). A fine brass in the centre of the chancel floor commemorates Rev. Cooley, died 1953.