Church Of St. Andrew

Parish church of the 12th to early 16th centuries, with later alterations and a restoration around 1858. Built of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings and lead roofs. The building comprises a western tower, nave with clerestory, north aisle, porch, chapel and chancel.

The three-stage tower is of 12th-century coursed limestone rubble with two offsets and a 16th-century embattled parapet featuring gargoyles and angle pinnacles. The south wall contains a blocked two-light early 13th-century belfry opening, repeated on the other sides. Above these are two-light 14th-century louvred belfry openings with cusped ogee heads, quatrefoils and moulded hoods. The recut 12th-century west door has a chamfered hood and imposts, with a single rectangular light above.

The gabled north porch has a 19th-century moulded outer arch and stone side benches. The inner doorway is mid-13th century with a deeply moulded head, angle shafts, annular capitals and moulded hoods with tail stops. The nave, chancel, chapel and aisles have 16th-century embattled parapets. The north aisle contains two three-light 13th-century windows with fine Geometric quatrefoils to the upper parts. The early 16th-century ashlar clerestory has three paired trefoil-headed lights with panel tracery and triangular heads and hoods.

The extremely fine early 16th-century north Thimelby chantry chapel features stepped buttresses and moulded plinth, with four deeply set three-light windows with cusped heads and concave moulded four-centred arched surrounds. An octagonal stair turret stands at the west end, and a further three-light window with panel-traceried top is at the east end. The chancel has a recut 13th-century three-light geometric-traceried window, and two two-light late 13th-century windows with quatrefoils in its south wall. An ogee-headed door with square hood and a two-light 17th-century window also appear in the south wall.

The south nave wall retains the three-bay arcade to the vanished aisle, of early 13th-century character with single-chamfered arches and annular capitals. Set in the blocking are an early 13th-century door with angle shafts and dogtoothing, plus two three-light late 13th-century windows with intersecting tracery.

The interior features a late 12th-century tower arch with circular responds, waterleaf and stiff-leaf capitals, moulded imposts and two stepped and chamfered orders with chamfered hood. The hood mould of the early 13th-century three-bay arcade is visible in the south wall. A late 13th-century three-bay north arcade has octagonal piers and responds with double-chamfered arches. In the north aisle a 16th-century pointed doorway leads to an upper door to a vanished rood loft.

The early 13th-century chancel arch has circular responds, annular capitals and a double-chamfered arch. The chancel north wall contains a three-bay early 13th-century arcade with round piers, annular capitals and double-chamfered arches, with human head stops to the hood. In the sanctuary stands a 14th-century ogee-headed aumbry with crockets and finial on the north side, and to the south an early 13th-century triple sedilia with round shafts, foliate capitals and moulded heads.

The north chapel houses an early 14th-century Easter sepulchre of sideboard form, comprising three niches with elaborately cusped and floriated nodding ogee canopies. The upper part is richly decorated with gablettes, pinnacles, pierced foliage and further canopies. The sides have pierced reticulated panels and it has a brattished top. The Easter Sepulchre was probably moved to its current position in 1858. Blank niches flank the sepulchre.

All roofs are 16th-century with tie beams supported on carved corbels. The east window contains stained glass from 1859, a memorial to Captain W. H. Woodhouse.

The furnishings include a full set of remade 16th-century oak bench pews with curved rectangular ends featuring tracery patterns. The early 13th-century tub font has a bowl supported on a round shaft with four attached colonettes. There is a finely carved oak openwork font cover with crockets and finials. All other fittings are 19th-century. At the west end of the nave are a fine oval hatchment and one Royal Coat of Arms dated 1726.

The south wall of the chancel contains a fine late 13th-century tomb recess with a trilobed gable and blank trefoils. The north chapel holds a handsome brass to Sir Andrew Luttrell, died 1390, depicting the deceased life-sized beneath a cusped ogee canopy, wearing plate armour with feet on a lion and an inscription at the base. In the chancel is a small mid-15th-century figure of a knight in full armour, with missing inscription, possibly to Sir Geoffrey Hilton.

The north chapel also contains three 18th-century wall monuments. A white marble plaque to Sir John Thimelby of Irnham Hall, died 1712, features fluted Doric pilasters, triglyph frieze and pediments supporting an urn. A white marble oval plaque to William Percy, died 1719, has a skull and cross bones at the head of the inscription. A marble monument to Benedict Conquest, died 1743 of Irnham Hall, comprises a sarcophagus with portrait roundel and lamps on a square base with moulded cornice and egg-and-dart frieze. The south wall displays two early 19th-century plaques in white and grey marble, and the front contains four black marble slabs to 18th-century members of the Thimelby and Conquest families.