Church of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

A church of Late 13th-century, 15th-century and 16th-century date, substantially restored in the mid-19th century and decorated in 1885 with a scheme of mosaic decoration designed by William Butterfield and installed by itinerant Italian mosaicists employed by Burke & Co. The building is constructed of knapped flint, reset during the mid-19th-century restoration, with stone dressings. The chancel and porch roofs are covered in graduated Horsham slate; the spire has wood shingles; the nave and aisles have plain-tile roofs from the 1950s.

The church comprises a 13th-century five-bay aisled nave with clerestory and central north and south porches (the latter added in the mid-19th century), a lower 15th-century two-bay chancel, and a 15th-century west tower with a 16th-century spire. The building displays Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular styling throughout. Features include quoins to angles, buttresses with ashlar off-sets, quoined pointed-arched openings with hoodmoulds to the principal ones, corbelled raised verges with ashlar copings and gable crosses, and offset stepped ashlar copings to the embattled four-stage tower.

The nave has four small windows to the clerestory and aisles. The taller aisle windows at the east and west ends include a pair with two cusped lights and a quatrefoil over. The west tower features large angle buttresses, a door in a moulded surround with hoodmould, and replacement panel tracery to the window above. Above this is a narrow trefoil-headed light, and the upper stage has a two-light window with reticulated tracery. The north side of the tower has windows to the third and fourth stages of similar design, while the south side has a similar third-stage light with a fourth-stage window of paired cusped lights with wooden lattice. The east side has a similar window below a clock face, with an oculus on the south side. A vice at the south-east angle has small rectangular chamfered lights. The tower is topped by an octagonal spire with a weather-cock.

The chancel has an offset plinth and central buttress. Its windows include two-light examples with renewed tracery and a restored five-light east window with cusped tracery to the head. A late-20th-century semi-subterranean vestry is attached to the south side of the nave.

Interior

The nave features pointed-arched arcades with simply-moulded bases and capitals to circular columns, and continuous hoodmoulds with carved pendants. A double piscina in the south-east corner has a moulded, cusped architrave with bowls formed as a trefoil and a quatrefoil. The mid-19th-century chancel arch, crown-post roof, pulpit, lectern and some surviving floor tiles are present. The 1885 mosaics above the aisle arcades and tower arch depict the twelve apostles set above the Apostles' Creed and portraits of the patriarchs.

The tower arch is carried on attached semi-octagonal columns and has a pointed-arched vice door. An early-18th-century Stiles family wall monument comprises an aedicule with coat-of-arms over, flanked by oval memorial tablets. A 19th-century font is also present.

The chancel contains a 15th-century screen with Perpendicular-style tracery and metal spikes. Six misericords on the east side are carved with heads and foliage, and decorative panelling returns along the chancel's north and south walls (partly restored), with contemporary choir-stall fronts and fleur-de-lis finials. A Jacobean altar-rail features turned balusters, a stylised floral motif to the frieze, and acorn finials. A matching contemporary altar table is also present.

The north porch contains commemorative brasses recording the installation of the mosaics and their cleaning in 1913, and has red and black floor tiles. The inner door has a moulded pointed arch with leaf terminals on attached columns. A plainer south doorway is opposite.