Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

Parish church at Abbots Ripton, High Street. The church comprises a 13th-century nave with south arcade, a 15th-century chancel and north arcade, and a late 15th-century west tower. It was substantially restored in the 19th century and around 1930 by S Inskip Ladds.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of limestone rubble, fieldstone, and random rubble to the nave, aisles and chancel, with limestone dressings. The roofs are plain tiled and leaded.

Plan and Exterior

The church has a west tower, nave with north and south aisles, chancel and north chapel.

The west tower is embattled with a square finial to each corner and a moulded main cornice. It is divided into four stages, with a sill carried around the tower and diagonal buttressing to the fourth stage. The west doorway has two continuous orders in a two-centred arch; the outer order is wave moulded and the inner order is hollow chamfered. The west window, restored, has three lights in a two-centred ogee moulded arch with label. The bell stage has two lights divided by a mullion and transom in a two-centred arch with label.

The nave has a 15th-century clerestory of coursed limestone. Each side has three windows of two trefoil lights in a pointed arched head with hollow moulding. The south aisle is of rubblestone with limestone dressings and contains two 15th-century windows, restored, of three cinquefoil lights with vertical tracery in a two-centred arch with label and grotesque stops to one of the labels. The south aisle has two-stage buttressing.

The south porch is 13th-century in origin, though probably rebuilt. The outer arch is 13th-century with two chamfered orders in a two-centred arch, the outer on engaged columns with splayed capitals (one restored) and moulded bases. The inner arch is two-centred with a single chamfered order and label.

The 15th-century chancel is of fieldstone with a parapetted roof. The south wall has two windows of three cinquefoil lights in a pointed arch. The east wall and east window have been restored; the east window has four cinquefoil lights with perpendicular tracery. The north chapel, 15th-century, has an east window of three cinquefoil lights in a depressed arch with vertical tracery and a moulded eaves cornice of stone.

Interior

The west tower arch is 15th-century, two-centred and of two orders. The outer is continuous and hollow moulded; the inner has a hollow chamfer on shafts with moulded capital and base.

The south arcade consists of three bays with two-centred arches. The arches are restorations of the 19th and 20th centuries, though it is suggested the restoration reproduces 15th-century work, but two of the columns with moulded capitals and bases are 13th-century. The 15th-century north arcade has three bays with two-centred arches of two wave-moulded orders, the inner springing from engaged shafts with moulded capitals.

The south wall of the south aisle has two-centred unmoulded arches forming blind arcading on engaged piers with stop-chamfered corners and square capitals. Original stone seats for the poor and invalid remain in the south wall. Two 15th-century windows, probably insertions, have been restored in the 19th century in two of the bays.

The chancel arch has also been restored. The chancel has a 15th-century roof of two bays with pierced spandrel bracing to tie beams on jack posts, the faces carved with male and female figures. The intermediate principal rafters have male and female figures carved to the soffit. A brass plaque on the north side of the chancel arch records the restoration of the nave roof in 1868.

The north chapel has a late 15th-century depressed four-centred arch leading to the chancel with two wave-moulded orders on both faces. The inner order is carried on an engaged column with a high moulded base, and there is a moulded label carried on a demi-shaft.