The Church of St Andrew

The Church of St Andrew, Farnham

St Andrew's is a parish church of 12th-century origin, substantially extended and altered over successive periods, with significant 19th and 20th-century interventions. It is constructed of uncoursed limestone rubble, with the tower built of coursed rubble and polygonal corner buttresses of dressed coursed stone. All roofs are covered in clay tiles.

The church is oriented east-west and arranged in three parallel ranges. The central range comprises a five-bay nave, a crossing, a two-bay chancel and a single-bay sanctuary. To north and south run continuous aisles with transepts and chapels. A four-stage tower with a shallow ringing chamber stands to the west of the nave. The transepts both have 19th-century extensions serving as vestries. All roofs are pitched and gabled, running east-west, except the transept roofs which run north-south.

The sanctuary is furnished with angle buttresses and a plinth, while the flanking chapels, set back by a bay, have diagonal buttresses without plinths. The east window has five lights with cusped Perpendicular tracery. The south chapel displays an off-set three-light cusped Perpendicular window to the east; the north chapel has a triple-lancet with continuous drip-mould and a blind quatrefoil above. Both chapels have three-light cusped Perpendicular windows to north and south; the north chapel's western window has been lost behind a 19th-century vestry addition, while the eastern window retains some original stonework with less heavy restoration. The transepts are Perpendicular with three-light windows and quatrefoils above.

The aisle windows are irregularly spaced with cusped reticulated tracery. A south door, previously blocked, has been restored. The north door is surrounded by a heavy 19th-century timber porch. Both aisles had small windows high in their west gable ends, presumed to have lit 18th-century galleries; that to the south aisle is blocked but evidence remains internally, while the north aisle window survives as a pair of lancets in a square frame. The aisles are built in random rubble with patches of coursed stone indicating later repairs. The north aisle shows evidence of a blocked archway into what is understood to have been a 15th-century Lady Chapel, demolished in the 18th century.

The west tower has a large four-light Perpendicular window over the west door, which has a four-centred arch with square hood and carved spandrels. The bell chamber features paired louvered lancets with Perpendicular tracery to each face, and the tower is topped with battlements and corner pinnacles.

The interior is painted white with a stone floor. The nave has a hammer-beam roof with trusses supported on carved head corbels and a blue-painted ceiling. The north and south arcades have pointed arches and octagonal columns with shallow capitals and ogival bases, standing on square plinths. Both aisles have crown post roofs.

The chancel arch is supported on drum columns with scalloped capitals; the chancel arcades have both moulded and scalloped capitals also on drum columns. The chancel and sanctuary ceiling is panelled as a faceted barrel vault, painted blue and gold. The sanctuary floor is black and white marble, enclosed by a heavily carved altar rail with ionic columns of probable mid-17th-century date. The south wall contains a triple sedilia, piscina and credence shelf with cusped ogival arches.

The north chapel, dedicated to St George, is separated from the north transept by a carved parclose screen of 14th-century character. It has a three-bay crown post roof with a modillioned wall plate. The south chapel is the Lady Chapel, separated from the transept by a matching carved parclose screen. The Lady Chapel has a flat timber panelled ceiling, painted black and gold. Several areas of earlier plaster are exposed, revealing painted-on ashlar joints and evidence of window alteration.

At the west end, across the nave and two aisles, are three interconnected freestanding painted timber pavilions inserted in the early 21st century to provide meeting rooms and a kitchen. The roof of these pavilions functions as a gallery for extra seating.

The font, located in the south transept, is 15th-century, octagonal and carved with sacred monograms and the symbols of the four Evangelists, standing on an octagonal columnar base; the cover is modern. The pulpit is of oak and burr walnut, dating from 1895 in early 18th-century style, a memorial to Reverend Philip Hoste, Rector from 1875 to 1893.

The stained glass is 19th and 20th-century, with the east window by Pugin, exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851 before installation in the church. The Lady Chapel contains three 16th and 17th-century brasses and four 18th-century marble cartouches. Numerous wall monuments are distributed throughout the church, including a notable collection in the west tower with a monument to the journalist and political reformer William Cobbett (died 1835) and one to George Strut (died 1927) with lettering carved by Eric Gill on the south-west tower buttress. The church also contains eleven funeral hatchments dating from the mid-18th to mid-19th century.