Church Of St Andrew

Church of St. Andrew

This is a parish church of complex build history, with the earliest fabric dating to around 1170, followed by mid-14th-century work, and further development around 1400. The building was substantially restored and its chancel rebuilt in 1868–69 by Edward Browning. It is constructed of uncoursed pale yellow limestone rubble, coursed limestone rubble, and limestone ashlar. The roofs are plain tile and slate with coped west gable finished with kneelers and a cross finial.

The church comprises a nave with a north aisle, south porch, crossing tower, and apsidal chancel.

The 12th-century west front features a moulded plinth and flanking pilaster buttresses that rise to a string course. The south buttress has an angle shaft with a cushion capital and a Caryatid figure above. Below the string course the wall is of rubble. Above sits a pointed window, restored in the 19th century, containing 3 pointed cusped lights with a hood mould and ornate label stops. Two human heads appear in the gable above.

The 12th-century north aisle to the west has a moulded plinth, rubble walling to the string course, and a pilaster angle buttress with an angle shaft and cushion capital. A mid-14th-century window, restored in the 19th century, has a triangular head with 2 cusped ogee-headed lights and breaks through the head of a pointed fragmentary 12th-century blocked window. The north side of the north aisle was rebuilt in 1868–69 and extended to cover the area of a former north transept destroyed in 1788. It features regularly placed pilaster buttresses with a moulded string course and Lombardic-style corbel table. A doorway with a semi-circular head has a continuous roll-moulded surround, hood mould, and plank door, with a segmental relieving arch above. Small semi-circular-headed windows to either side complete the composition. At the east end of the north aisle is a reused pilaster buttress with an angle shaft and cushion capital, and a small semi-circular-headed window.

The 12th-century crossing tower was remodelled in the late 14th century with clasping pilaster buttresses. The south-east buttress contains a stair turret with a 19th-century narrow doorway with triangular head, chamfered surround, and plank door; two slit stair lights above, and two grotesque sculpted figures adorn it. Late 14th-century bell openings on all four sides each have a pointed head with 2 cusped pointed lights, mouchettes, hood mould, and ornate label stops. The moulded eaves support large corner gargoyles and central corbel heads with angular shafts rising to the base of central pinnacles. Eight ornate pinnacles crown the battlements.

The 19th-century apsidal chancel has a plinth, moulded string course, and Lombardic-style corbel table. Four regularly placed windows, each a lancet with ornate flanking shafts with stiff-leaf capitals, have hood moulds running into the string course. The south side includes a segmental relieving arch.

A truncated south transept, destroyed in 1788, displays a blocked pointed archway with an inserted pointed window of 2 cusped lights, panel tracery, and hood mould with reused 14th-century label stops. Two plain roof corbels sit above a narrow rectangular light.

The south side of the 12th-century nave was restored in the 19th century, with a moulded plinth and Lombardic-style corbel table. A single tall narrow semi-circular-headed window to the east has a pilaster buttress to its left. A mid-14th-century window to the west has a segmental head with 3 cusped ogee-headed lights and hood mould. The gabled 19th-century south porch is built over a pilaster buttress. It has a plinth, corbel table, and small semi-circular-headed windows in the east and west walls with hood moulds running into string courses. A round-headed south doorway with a moulded head and single semi-circular jambs with geometrically decorated scalloped capitals opens to glazed doors.

The porch interior contains a fine south doorway of around 1170 with 3 orders of shafts with ornate foliate capitals including ribbed leaves, beaded tendrils, and incipient waterleaf. The semi-circular head features roll moulding, chevron, billet, and incised scalloped decoration, with hood mould and ornate label stops. An early 13th-century door with ornate iron scrollwork hangs here. Another 12th-century doorway, reset in the west wall, has a semi-circular head with a tympanum decorated with a large fan of scallops; outer orders have beaded ribbon, circle, and petal decoration. Supporting capitals feature ornate beaded scallop decoration. An aisle west of the porch has pilaster buttresses flanking a tall narrow semi-circular-headed window, heightened in the 19th century.

The north arcade of the nave dates to around 1170 and comprises 4 bays. Responds have clusters of keeled shafts. The westernmost pier is round with cruciform abaci; the next is a large rectangular pier with single keeled shafts to north and south and pairs of small keeled shafts to east and west; the easternmost round pier has a plain scalloped capital. Semi-circular moulded heads in 2 orders sit above a string course. The easternmost arcade bay retains fragmentary remains of red painted decoration on its soffit. Late 14th-century crossing arches to west, north, east, and south feature semi-circular responds, polygonal capitals and abaci, and richly moulded pointed heads.

The three eastern windows of the 19th-century chancel are flanked by 6 slender shafts with shaft rings and stiff-leaf capitals, with an ornate corbel table above. The roofs are of 19th-century work.

Interior furnishings include a 19th-century pulpit with traceried panels, 10 ornate late 15th-century bench ends with rich traceried panels and large beaded finials (the design copied in the 19th century for the remainder of the pews), a 15th-century octagonal font with quatrefoil panels containing blank shields, and a medieval chest. Fragments on the window ledge of the north-west window of the north aisle include a gargoyle head, a 15th-century jug from the burial ground, and a cresset stone with 7 hollows for holding oil and wicks. A second octagonal font bowl has narrow roll mouldings at each corner.

The north-west crossing pier bears an inscription in its north side reading "Sing Prayses unto the Lord o Ye Sans of His 1581. N. Edone . Sperni.N C.I.EER 6R" with a small carved panel below. In the vestry at the east end of the north aisle are 2 moulded 15th-century window heads embedded in the wall and 2 fragments of Lombardic-style corbel table. A 16th-century wooden altar table is present. A white marble monument with coat of arms on its apron commemorates John Hubbard, who died in 1783.