Church of St Andrew is a Grade I listed building in the Breckland local planning authority area, England. First listed on 23 June 1960. A Medieval and later (C14, C15, C19 works explicitly mentioned) Church.
Church of St Andrew
- WRENN ID
- scattered-spire-saffron
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- Breckland
- Constituency
- South West Norfolk MP: Terry Jermy (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 23 June 1960
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Medieval and later (C14, C15, C19 works explicitly mentioned)
- Address
- Church of St Andrew, Fairstead Lane, Little Cressingham
- OS grid reference
- TF 871 000
- Coordinates
- 52.56595, 0.76051
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Andrew is a parish church located in Little Cressinghham, with origins in the medieval period and later alterations. It is constructed of flint with ashlar and some brick dressings, featuring roofs made of corrugated concrete tiles and plain tiles. The church has a former tower porch on the south side of the nave, though one and a half sides of this structure have collapsed. The nave is aisled, but the two westernmost bays of the nave and the westernmost bay of the south aisle are roofless. Additionally, two bays of the north aisle have been demolished, leaving only the west wall intact.
The church includes a chancel and a fragmentary 15th-century tower, which has two surviving angle buttresses and a remnant of a wave and double ogee moulded eastern entrance jamb, but no bell openings. There is a stoop beside the moulded south doorway. The west wall features a chequered flushwork plinth, where the stone is simulated with mortar. The large west window has been reduced to a late-medieval flat-headed two-light window. The aisle wall contains a three-light window that is also simulated in flushwork. The south aisle has three three-light windows with mouchettes beneath four-centred arches, along with a similar east window. The north aisle, added in the 19th century, includes tracery that imitates the south aisle.
The chancel features one 14th-century two-light window with a cusped soufflet on the north side, and two blocked windows on the south with remaining tracery stumps. There is a moulded priest's doorway and a three-light east window with tracery crudely reinstated based on the remaining stumps. The present entrance to the west is in a brick wall that divides the roofed church from the ruin. Inside, the church showcases fine Perpendicular arcades, where each pier consists of opposing half-shafts against a narrow wave-moulded core that rises uninterrupted to form the outer order of the arch. The wave-moulded inner order is supported on half-shafts, and the chancel arch is plain and chamfered. The chancel also contains an arched trilobe piscina with carved terminals.
Local climate
Church of St Andrew sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 730 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 79% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 95% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 31 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 62% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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