Church of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

A church built in two phases by the renowned Victorian architect Sir Arthur Blomfield. The chancel and east end of the nave were completed in 1887, with the remainder of the nave and the west front finished in 1893. The church was built on land given by the Cotton family in memory of the philanthropist William Cotton of Wallwood House, who also funded much of the work.

The building is constructed of Kentish rag with freestone dressings and makes extensive use of knapped flint. It follows the Early English style and comprises an aisled nave with a shallow porch to the west end and a deep porch to the north, a deep chancel, and an attached vestry to the north east. A slim timber fleche rises above the crossing.

The west front features a wide gable containing a tall central window with a pair of lancets and a roundel, with a single lancet to each side, flanked by corner pinnacles. A single-storey full-width porch with a pitched roof and central gabled door is flanked by three lancet windows in the west end of each aisle. The long nave has five bays, most containing two simple lancets at both aisle and clerestory level. The north side includes a deep porch and a new simple entrance has been added to the south side. The slightly lower chancel has a low canted re-entrant roof to its south-east corner. The east end is flanked by pinnacles and features a wide large arch containing three lancets and two roundels, with tall arched windows flanking it, each with a pair of lancets and a cinquefoil roundel.

Internally, the walls are red brick lined with stone dressings to the arcade, which features moulded arches and circular columns. The chancel, also funded by the Cotton family, is the grandest interior space, ashlar-faced with moulded arched window openings, Purbeck marble colonettes, and stiff-leaf carving to the chancel arch corbels. It contains glass of 1892 and has an altar front decorated with a lamb and painted angels. The chancel is topped with a wooden barrel vaulted roof, while the nave has an arched cruck roof with pierced timbers.

In 1977, the western bays of the nave were divided from the main body of the church with a full-height glazed partition. One bay in the resulting hall was subsequently infilled in late-20th-century brick to form a kitchen. These alterations, whilst changing the interior space, do not fundamentally affect the building's fabric.

The church contains original oak pews in the nave and choir stalls. Several stained glass windows are by Margaret Isobel Chitton (1875-1963), dating between 1919 and 1957, executed in an Arts and Crafts tradition with some expressionist influences. The earliest is the circa 1919 Petzsche memorial in the south aisle, and war memorial windows are located in the north and south aisles of the hall at the west end.