Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

Parish church located on the north side of Northwold High Street. The building comprises a 13th-century nave and aisles, a 14th-century chancel that was partly rebuilt in 1840 and enlarged in 1895, and a late 15th-century west tower.

The exterior is constructed of flint with ashlar dressings, rendered to the nave and aisles, with copper sheet roofs. The four-stage west tower features flushwork diagonal buttresses and a plinth decorated with flushwork route tournant motifs. The west door is moulded and set within a square surround beneath a frieze of letters and symbols. A three-light west window with hood mould continuing as a string course sits above, with further string courses at each storey. The ringing chamber has single lancets, while the third storey is blank. The belfry level contains three-light windows. A flushwork crenellated parapet is topped with eight crocketed finials and gargoyles.

The aisles have low angle buttresses. The south aisle west window is a 19th-century three-light mouchette design. The south porch entrance features continuous double sunk quadrant mouldings and a crenellated parapet with projecting gable and rendered quoining. The inner south door has 13th-century mouldings, deeply undercut. Three further 19th-century three-light Decorated windows light the aisle. Both aisles and clerestory have crenellated parapets. Four 15th-century four-centred three-light clerestory windows feature flushwork relieving arches, each separated by a three-light cusped blind window with transom and square head. Above the west window of the south clerestory is a memorial frieze inscribed "PRAY FOR THE SOLE OF JOHN STERLING".

The south chancel has two three-light Perpendicular windows with angle buttresses to the east and a five-light restored reticulated east window. The north vestry, originally two storeys but altered in the 19th century, has a three-light intersecting east window, a blocked upper cusped lancet to the north, a lancet and arched door to the west, and a 19th-century stack. Two three-light reticulated north chancel windows complete the exterior.

Interior: A four-bay 13th-century arcade features quatrefoil piers with fillets to the east and west lobes. The waterholding bases sit on square plinths lugged with animal, figurative, and foliage carving. Four capitals display fine stiff-leaf carving, with the remainder moulded. The west bay dates to the early 14th century. Both the hollow chamfered tower arch and wave-moulded chancel arch have semi-circular responds and polygonal capitals.

The nave roof alternates between hammerbeams and arched braces to principals, which drop onto wall posts. The corbels supporting these are carved as angels, animals, or grotesques. The wall plate features a decorated cornice with shields in the frieze. The principals are moulded, with one tier of butt purlins and a ridge piece. A deeply carved font dates to 1882, with a cover from 1887. The 19th-century chancel roof is similarly detailed with moulded principals on arched braces, one tier of butt purlins, and a ridge piece.

A timber plaque in the nave commemorates Robert Burhill, dated 1727, and is decorated with painted cherubs, swags, and memento mori. An ashlar plaque to Ann Gordon, dated 1732, features an inscription panel framed by elaborate carving of putti, swags, and a blank achievement.

The late 15th-century Easter sepulchre is one of the most elaborate and important late examples in the country. The tomb chest comprises three parts: a plain plinth; a base with an arcade of paired arches separated by quatrefoils; and a frieze depicting four sleeping soldiers and three stylised trees. From the plinth, the composition is framed by buttresses elaborated with niches, vaulting, subsidiary stepped buttresses, and crockets. The rear wall is richly panelled and cusped, with minor lierne vaulting at its mid-point. Engaged shafts rise through the vaulting to terminate in three pendant canopies distinguished by a most complicated system of lierne, tierceron, double-bay, star, and fan vaults. The upper parts of the canopies are pierced by panel tracery.