Church of St Andrew is a Grade II* listed building in the West Suffolk local planning authority area, England. First listed on 14 July 1955. A Medieval Church.

Church of St Andrew

WRENN ID
old-pediment-stoat
Grade
II*
Local Planning Authority
West Suffolk
Constituency
Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket MP: Dr Peter Prinsley (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
14 July 1955
Type
Church
Period
Medieval
Address
Church of St Andrew, Timworth
OS grid reference
TL 860 697
Coordinates
52.29423, 0.72693
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St Andrew is a parish church located in an isolated position off the road. It dates from the 13th and 14th centuries and was extensively restored in 1868 at the sole expense of the then incumbent, the Reverend E.R. Benyon. The church comprises a nave and chancel, a south tower that serves as a porch, and a north vestry. The tower is constructed of rubble flint, while the nave and chancel are primarily made of kidney flint, featuring freestone dressings and quoins. The roofs are covered with plain tiles.

On the south side of the nave, there is evidence of a blocked earlier window, and the rubble is coursed at the bottom of the wall. The north doorway features a simple pointed 13th-century arch with continuous mouldings, and there are two lancet windows on the north wall of the chancel, although the remaining window tracery has been replaced in the Victorian style. The south doorway, dating from the early 14th century, also has continuous mouldings, and the surrounding arch, which is part of the north wall of the tower, displays several 18th-century graffiti marks. The 14th-century tower was added to the south because the west end of the nave is too close to the boundary of the churchyard to accommodate it there. The tower has three stages, with 19th-century flushwork panels around the base and south doorway, diagonal buttresses, and a plain embattled parapet. A scratch-dial is located on a projecting square-set block of stone at the bottom of the second stage of the south-east buttress.

The interior has been heavily restored, with the roof, benches, and font all renewed. However, there is a fine set of late 17th-century altar rails featuring barley-sugar twist balusters, along with a short flight of steps leading up to the pulpit, which has the same balusters. The pulpit is a handsome Baroque design, hexagonal in shape, with panelled sides, winged cherub heads supporting the base, and acanthus-leaf decoration around the top. It is said to have come from St. James' Church in Bury St. Edmunds and has been adapted with mid-Victorian applied panels in Gothic style and a renewed stone base. Additionally, there are large painted and framed arms of William III on the south wall.

Local climate

Church of St Andrew sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 88% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 93% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 33 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 54% of listed buildings. Of these, 17 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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