Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew, Rippingale High Street

A parish church in coursed limestone rubble and ashlar with some red brick and render, featuring lead roofs with stone coped gables and cross finials. The building dates from the mid-13th century, with significant additions and modifications around 1300, 1350, the mid-15th century and 16th century. It was restored in 1860.

The church comprises a west tower, a nave with a broad, long south aisle running the full length of the building, a south porch and chancel.

The mid-15th-century west tower has a moulded plinth and a frieze of shields on cusped fields continuing over multistage angle buttresses. Slit stair lights sit immediately to the left of the south-west buttress. The pointed west window has an incipient double bowtell moulded surround, three barely pointed cusped lights, panel tracery and a hood mould. A small doorway on the south side features a shield carved on the lintel and a plank door. Above are a small, narrow light with barely pointed head to the west and south, and a clock to the east and south. Bell openings on all four sides each comprise a pair of narrow, deeply moulded openings, each divided into two pointed cusped lights with a transom and hood moulds. Moulded eaves above display two projecting gargoyles on both the west and south sides. Battlements and ornate corner pinnacles crown the tower.

The mid-14th-century north wall of the nave has a plinth and four regularly placed two-stage buttresses. A doorway to the west features a pointed head, continuous chamfered surround, hood mould with head label stops and a plank door. Two windows to the left (the eastern one broader) have pointed heads, three ogee-headed cusped lights and flowing tracery. Clerestory windows immediately above on the same plane comprise three windows each with a flattened triangular head, three round-headed cusped lights and hood moulds. Moulded eaves sit above. The shallow east gable of the nave is of brick. The north side features a window with a flattened triangular head, three cusped triangular-headed lights and a hood mould, with a parapet above partially patched with brick.

The east end of the chancel displays a large pointed window with three cusped lights of pointed and ogee shapes, a cusped oculus, hood mould and head label stops.

The broader east end of the south aisle runs parallel with the chancel's east end and has a moulded plinth with flanking single-stage buttresses. A large pointed window of circa 1300 features four trefoil-headed lights, large delicately moulded geometrical tracery, a hood mould and head label stops. The south side of the aisle is rendered with no structural definition of chancel and nave. It has a moulded plinth and regularly placed single-storey buttresses. Three pointed windows of circa 1300 each display two trefoil-headed lights and large delicately moulded geometrical tracery and hood moulds. A pointed doorway below and to the left of the central window has a richly moulded head with three orders of shafts with moulded capitals, a hood mould and a plank door. A sundial sits immediately above the westernmost window.

A 14th-century gabled south porch to the left has a moulded plinth and a large round-headed doorway moulded with two orders and featuring trefoiled responds, the central larger rolls with fillets, moulded capitals, a hood mould with head label stops. The porch interior is flanked by stone benches. The interior south doorway has a pointed head, continuous double-chamfered surround, a hood mould and double plank doors.

The west end of the south aisle has a plinth and a pointed plate-traceried window restored in the 19th century, with two pointed lights, a quatrefoil and a hood mould.

The interior tower arch has a pointed moulded head, very tall jambs of two orders with concave mouldings and castellated capitals, a hood mould and a moulded plinth with a frieze of shields on cusped fields. The original roof line of the nave is visible above the tower arch. Projecting buttresses flank the tower. The tower interior contains numerous painted boards recording benevolent bequests and a single faded hatchment.

A six-bay arcade runs down the full length of the nave and chancel, dating to circa 1300, with quatrefoiled piers featuring continuous hollows and fillets, moulded capitals and pointed double-chamfered heads with hood moulds.

The chancel east wall to the right of the altar has a 19th-century piscina with a pointed moulded head supported on single flanking shafts. The south aisle contains a trefoil-headed piscina with a gable dating to circa 1300. To the east of the porch doorway is a blocked broad pointed tomb recess with a continuous chamfered surround.

The south aisle contains a recumbent female effigy, possibly of Margaret de Coellville who married John Gobard in the first half of the 14th century, with a richly cusped and finalled ogee-shaped canopy featuring ball flower decoration and supported on large head label stops. The table tomb beneath the effigy has seven gabled niches with ornate pinnacles. The effigy features an ornate canopy held over the head by mutilated armoured figures, flowing drapery, clasped hands in prayer, a coif and wimple.

A mid-13th-century effigy of Sir Hugh Gobard, deacon, laid on a 20th-century table tomb, displays richly flowing vestments with a surrounding band of stiff leaf foliage, feet resting on two large stiff leaf whorls, a tonsured head and an open book inscribed faintly with: "Here lies High Gofoed the palmer son of John Goboed...Pray for his soul".

Next to him lies a mid-13th-century effigy of a cross-legged knight in chain mail, resting on a 20th-century tomb chest, possibly of Sir Guy Gobard, with clasped hands in prayer, a lion at its feet and a fragmentary sword.

To the east of the Gobard effigies is a gravely mutilated effigy set in the floor.

A large late-15th-century table tomb displays three effigies of Roger de Quincey flanked by his two wives. Mutilated angels support their pillowed heads and mutilated dogs their feet. De Quincey is depicted with cropped hair and armour and is now legless. His wives are also severely mutilated, dressed in flowing robes. The table tomb itself is decorated with ornate canopied panels featuring angels supporting shields, shields suspended from flowerheads and grotesque heads, a large helmet with flaming brands and several other shields.

Monuments include: a black and white marble oval to Frances Waters (died 1828); a white sepulchre on black field to Rev. William Waters (died 1853); a large white oval supported on a scrolled bracket to Wade Gascoigne (died 1801); a brass with foliate decoration to Alfred Cooper (died 1866); and a fine white with grey-streaked marble monument with flanking Ionic columns supporting an entablature and broken pediment with a cartouche rising from the broken apex, to the five infant children of Richard Brownlow who died in the 1650s and 1660s.

Monuments in the south aisle include one to Richard Quincey (died 1813) in black and white marble; slate and white marble with ornate lettering to Elizabeth Quincey (died 1741); a slate monument with a broken pediment and human head set in the broken apex to Richard Quincey (died 1757); a black and white marble monument with an urn to John Quincey (died 1827); an alabaster monument supported on two human heads to Elizabeth Bacon (died 1830); a black and white marble monument to Robert Younger (died 1856); and three black and white marble monuments to Sarah Younger (died 1850), Robert Grummit (died 1852) and Jane Shield (died 1857).

A 15th-century octagonal font sits on a two-stepped broad octagonal plinth, with an octagonal pedestal and cusped panels containing flower heads and shields.

The church features 16th-century tie beam roofs with curved braces and rosette bosses. The loft coving of the rood screen remains at the entrance to the chancel. Pews, choir stalls, a lectern and altar rail date to 1896. A chest from 1785 is present, as is a 20th-century stone pulpit.