Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew, Welsh Frankton

A chapel-of-ease, now parish church, built in 1857–8 by Edward Haycock on the site of a chapel dating from 1835. The building has undergone later additions and alterations. It is constructed of rock-faced sandstone ashlar with plain ashlar dressings, banded stonework to the tower, and machine tile roofs with coped verges and stone crosses to the gables. The church is in Early Decorated style and comprises a nave, chancel, south-west tower, and north-east vestry with organ chamber.

The tower rises in three stages with gabled angle buttresses to the bottom two stages and a broached spire added in 1863. The belfry contains two-light slate-louvred cusped lancets with sexfoils above (except for the west side, which has a single cusped lancet with trefoil above), all with hoodmoulds and head-stops. The second stage is decorated with paired recessed lancets with shouldered heads under segmental-pointed arches on the south and east faces. A splayed external stair turret rises at the south-west corner. The spire features ornamental gabled lucarnes and a plain iron or bronze cross at its top. The porch, set within the tower, has an outer doorway on the south side with a moulded segmental-pointed arch and foliated label-stops, approached by a flight of 14 steps with a half-landing. The gabled sides of the approach are multi-stepped and ramped. Inside the porch, a ribbed vault in three bays leads to a hollow-moulded inner doorway.

The nave's south side is buttressed in two bays (including the tower bay) and contains trefoil-headed paired lancets linked by a continuous hoodmould with foliated label-stops; the left window has a quatrefoil above and the right has a trefoil above. The plinth is chamfered. The west end features a central gabled buttress with a broad trefoil-headed lancet on each side, both with foliated label-stops, and a cusped trefoil with foliated label-stops above the buttress. The north side is buttressed in four bays and has broad trefoil-headed lancets with quatrefoils above to the three western bays, linked by a continuous hoodmould with a foliated label-stop to the left and a head-stop to the right.

The chancel's south side has two closely spaced two-light lancets with quatrefoils above in the west bay, linked by a continuous hoodmould with foliated label-stops, and a single cusped lancet with trefoil above in the east bay. A continuous stepped moulded cill band runs along this wall. The east window has three lights with foliated label-stops, with a single-light cusped lancet above on the north bearing a trefoil and head-stops.

The gabled vestry and organ chamber, enlarged in 1871 and again in 1898, has paired trefoil-headed lancets to the north wall and a rectangular stack at the north-west corner. A doorway with a shouldered head is set in the angle between the vestry and chancel on the east side.

Internally, the nave is covered by a double-purlin roof in four bays with arch-braced upper and lower collars and king-posts. A double-chamfered pointed chancel arch with corbelled responds decorated with stiff-leaf foliage separates the nave from the chancel. The chancel roof is a curved trussed rafter roof with scissor bracing. A pointed double-chamfered arch opens to the vestry and organ chamber.

The sanctuary and chancel are raised and separated from the nave by a low stone screen beneath the chancel arch, which features encaustic tile decoration, with a flight of five steps leading to the centre. A stone pulpit built into the north side displays blind Gothic tracery patterns. Fittings and furnishings from 1857–8 onwards include an octagonal font with miniature cusped gables to its base. Painted legends appear over the north nave windows. A geometrically-patterned marble reredos was donated by the first incumbent, Oswald Moseley Feilden, in 1870. Several windows contain late 19th and early 20th-century stained glass, including the east window of 1924, which was installed in memory of Revd. Feilden, who died that year.

An alabaster memorial on the west wall of the nave and stained glass in windows above commemorate Charles Edward Kynaston of Hardwick Hall, who died in 1903.

The parish of Welsh Frankton was created in 1865 from parts of the parishes of Ellesmere and Whittington.