Church of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

This is a parish church built in the early and later 12th century, extended during the 14th to 15th centuries, and restored between 1853 and 1862 by Henry Woodyer, with further restoration in 1880 to 1884.

The church is constructed of knapped flint with Bath freestone dressings. The 12th-century piers are of chalk blocks or clunch. The spire is shingled, with tiled roofs elsewhere.

The plan comprises a three-bay south aisle, originally the nave, with the former chancel rebuilt as Brocas Chapel in the 14th century. A 19th-century south porch has been added. The nave itself contains three bays, with a west tower featuring a broached spire and a chancel rebuilt in the mid-19th century. The north aisle, originally three bays, was extended eastwards in the late 19th century to accommodate a chapel and organ chamber, with a single-storey vestry beyond.

Exterior

The exterior was largely refaced or repaired in the 19th century but retains a number of its early door and window openings.

The tower has diagonal buttresses and a chamfered plinth. Near the base, the original rubble and flint fabric survives. On each face is a single narrow round-headed 12th-century lancet light to the lower stage, with wider pointed arched lights above. The spire, restored in 1880 to 1882, has three tiers of quatrefoil timber openings on each face and is surmounted by a small octagonal cupola and a weathervane.

The west windows of the south aisle are a pair of 12th-century lancets; the south windows are of two cusped lights, mostly flat-headed except the third which has a pointed arch. Set tightly against one of these windows is a narrow pointed arched doorway with a much eroded and restored roll moulded arch. The door has serpentine strap hinges, a ring handle on a star-shaped plate and an elaborate plate to the keyhole. The east window to Brocas Chapel is of two ogival lights beneath a pointed arch, with a single slightly pointed lancet above it. The medieval south doorway, within the porch, has a pointed arch of multiple moulded orders. The 19th-century south porch has a wide slightly bowed arched entrance with robust chamfered mouldings and a chamfered impost band and plinth to each side. Small buttresses are set back on the returns. In the gable is a small recessed two-light window set in a cusped recessed panel, surmounted by an integral stone cross. On each return is a small lancet light. Timber outer gates have encircled quatrefoil panels above shafted cusped arcades. Within the porch, the roof is of exposed rafters.

The chancel, rebuilt or heavily restored in the mid-19th century, has angle buttresses and a three-light east window of plain panel tracery, with the gable in coursed stone.

The west end of the north aisle has diagonal buttresses and a four-light window with reticulated tracery, next to which is a blocked lancet with a slightly pointed head. The north wall was heavily restored in the 19th century. Between buttresses, windows are flat-headed with cusped lights beneath a blind quatrefoil panel. Between them is a cusped doorway in a plain surround; all are linked by a moulded cill band. The aisle has a two-light east window with delicate cusped tracery. Beyond is a late 19th-century flat-roofed vestry with a rectangular east-facing window of four flush cusped lights.

Interior

The nave arcades have drum piers and responds with round arches. The piers in the south arcade have square abaci and simplified waterleaf capitals with moulded bases, some with leaf spurs on square plinths, and an incised chevron band above the arcades on the nave side. The north arcade, of which the western respond appears least restored, has square abaci and chamfered capitals, some with incised leaf ornament, and a continuous moulded band above the arches facing the nave.

The tower arch is tall with a pointed head flanked by piers with moulded abaci and bases similar to the north aisle. An unmoulded arch, formerly the 12th-century chancel arch, leads from the south aisle to Brocas Chapel. Although restored, a high proportion of the aisle, Brocas Chapel and tower windows retain elements of their original jambs, rear arches and tracery.

Clerestory windows, which are not visible externally, are of three cusped lights beneath three-centred arches, with moulded rear arches on engaged shafts.

The nave, chancel, south aisle and Brocas Chapel have 19th-century panelled wagon roofs with quarter-moulded ribs, but in the nave, aisles and chapel appear to retain earlier moulded wall plates. The north aisle has a wind-braced side purlin roof with moulded tie beams and collars, braces to the collars and a deep moulded wall plate. The western three bays are original, the eastern two bays, one of which has cusped braces, are later 19th century.

The chancel was remodelled by Woodyer, who created two-bay arcades of moulded stilted arches to each side. On the north side the central pier has an elaborate carved capital; the entrance to the south has a figure head boss. The rood screen has traceried panels on moulded shafts and a pair of iron gates, now gilded, with quatrefoil traceried panels. The reredos, designed by Woodyer and sculpted by T Nicholls in marble and alabaster, depicts Christ in Majesty. Within the sanctuary are traces of wall painting comprising a repeated pattern of an encircled cross with radiating beams at each quadrant on a blue St Andrew's cross, superimposed on a grey linear grid resembling ashlar blocks. High up above the south arcade is a fragment of Gothic text.

In Brocas Chapel, below the south-east window is an ogival-headed piscina with a projecting foliated basin. Next to it is a tomb recess with an ogival head, the apex curtailed by an 18th-century monument above, probably associated with Sir Bernard de Brocas (died 1396). The reredos, dating to around 1920 and designed by FE Howard, depicts the Crucifixion flanked unusually by St Michael, St George, St Nicholas and St Joan; it is a war memorial commemorating those fallen in the 1914 to 1918 war.

The drum font, probably 12th-century, is decorated with a blind arcade of round arches beneath a chevron band and has a cable moulded base. The pulpit, probably also by Woodyer, is octagonal and of timber panels, now painted, on a stone base. There is a single late medieval pew with poppy head bench ends.

Stained glass includes work by Clayton and Bell throughout, with clerestory windows by Hardman, the south chancel window by Morris and Co., the south-eastern aisle window by Kempe (1902) and the south-eastern chantry chapel window by Sir Ninian Comper (1932).

Monuments include a neoclassical marble wall tablet to Earl Harcourt (died 1833) by Robert Sievier in the north aisle; a bronze wall tablet to TT Carter (died 1901) by W Bainbridge Reynolds; a tablet to GF Henson (1918) by TG Jackson; and in the chantry chapel a large mid-18th-century aedicular pedimented wall monument in marble to the Jenyns family.

Above the south aisle arch is 'Victory', a sculpted winged crucifix by Josephina de Vasconcellos, installed in 1967. Above the chancel arch is 'The Risen Christ', a wall painting of 1967 by Anthony Ballantine.