Church of St Andrew is a Grade II* listed building in the West Suffolk local planning authority area, England. First listed on 7 May 1954. A Medieval Church.
Church of St Andrew
- WRENN ID
- night-lintel-ochre
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- West Suffolk
- Constituency
- West Suffolk MP: Nick Timothy (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 7 May 1954
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Church of St Andrew, the Street, Cavenham
- OS grid reference
- TL 763 696
- Coordinates
- 52.29697, 0.58485
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Andrew is a medieval church that was restored in 1870. It features a nave, chancel, west tower, and south porch, constructed from flint rubble with areas of plaster work and limestone dressings. The roofs are covered with plain tiles, and the tower roof is flat behind crenellated parapets. The church has parapet gables, and the kneeler stones at the two southern corners of the nave feature figure carvings, while the north side displays dog-tooth detailing, all dating from the 13th century.
The chancel has early 13th-century walling with two lancet windows and a third that is blocked, along with a hood-moulded priest's doorway. Various alterations occurred throughout the 14th century, including an early 14th-century low-side window in the south chancel wall, which contains border glass and the inscription: "PRIEZ POR ADAM LA VICAR". There are two similar windows in the nave. The small, unbuttressed tower, possibly from the early 14th century, retains foundations and gable weathering from a cell at the west end, which may have been a porch with a room above that was demolished in the 18th century. The tower features lion-head gargoyles and restored two-light belfry openings.
A plain 14th-century west doorway is complemented by a sub-medieval oak-mullioned window above it. A mid-14th-century chancel window has a dropped-cill sedilia and a linked piscina with a crocketed pediment and corner shaft, opposite which is a small reliquary recess. Several 14th-century windows are present, some with good but decaying clunch tracery. The church includes simple late 14th-century north and south doorways, and the south porch has a pilastered doorway. The late 14th-century chancel arch features a much-altered screen, with painted boarded lower panels and upper tracery that was renewed in the 16th century, while the strapwork central drop-tracery is from the early 17th century.
Inside, there is an octagonal limestone font, possibly late 14th century, with a circular bowl, and a plain 17th-century octagonal pulpit. A 15th-century figure wall painting is located on the north wall. In the chancel, there is a wall tablet commemorating William Webb, who died in 1754, and in the nave, a floor brass memorial to John Symunt, who died in 1588. Flanking the east window, which dates to 1870, are two panels from around 1800 featuring painted Ten Commandments.
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 89% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 91% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 33 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 57% 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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