Church Of St Andrew

TL 2696 WHITTLESEY CHURCH STREET (West Side)

21/70 Church of St. Andrew 11.8.50

GV II*

Parish Church. Mainly C14, but with part of south aisle C13. C15 nave arcade, clerestorey, West Tower and South porch. Restored 1872. Rubblestone and Barnack ashlar and dressings. Leaded roofs of low pitch, with slates to North and South Chapel roofs. Plan of West tower, nave, North and South aisles, and chancel flanked by North and South Chapels. West tower, late C15, of four stages with embattled parapet on two-stage splayed plinth. Crocketed pinnacles at corners and main cornice with gargoyles. Clasping four-stage buttresses and newel staircase in South West corner. West doorway has four-centred archway in square head with foliate decoration to the spandrels. Restored three-light West window. Two cinquefoil openings to each side of bell chamber. Nave has C15 clerestorey with embattled parapet. Each side of clerestorey has four windows, of two cinquefoil lights each in four centred head. South aisle retains in the South West corner part of the wall from a C13 church on the site. Diagonal two stage buttress with gabled coping and a similar buttress in angle of South aisle and West tower, and partly obscured. The rest of the South aisle is C14 with blocked parapet and two large beast gargoyles to the main cornice. One C14 restored window with foiled head. South porch C15 with diagonal two stage buttresses to the corners and crocketed pinnacles. Vacant niche below the embattled parapetted gable end, and above the hollow moulded two centred outer archway with embattled capitals to the engaged shafts on high bases to the responds. The porch roof is original late C15 work. The South chapel, C14, flanks the chancel and is of dressed Barnack ashlar. On the South wall there are two original windows of two trefoil lights with wave moulded reveals in square heads with labels and mask stops. The East window of the chapel has a two centred arch and restored reticulated tracery. The chancel has a parapetted gable end and a five light window with flowing tracery. The North chapel and North aisle have similar, C14 fenestration of two trefoil lights in square head, but the corners of the chapel have pinnacles with finials. Inside: C15 tower arch with panelled responds and four bay nave arcade of similar late date. Two centred double chamfered arches with continuous label on slender clustered columns. Original arches between North and South chapels and the chancel, but the Chancel arch is now carried on corbels of 1872. The nave roof, and those of the South aisle, South and North chapels are either wholly or in part original. North Chapel retains an aumbry in the North wall and piscina in the South wall, but in the chancel this has been replaced and in the South it has been removed.

Pevsner: Buildings of England p.482 V.C.H. Cambs. Vol. 4

Listing NGR: TL2667396919