Church Of St Andrew The Apostle

Church of St Andrew the Apostle, Worthing, 1886-7

This is a church designed by the prominent Gothic Revival architect Arthur William Blomfield in the Early English manner, with interior fittings by the celebrated designer CE Kempe. A choir vestry was added in 1908 as a memorial to the assistant curate. The church is connected by a narrow link to a separately listed church hall.

The building is constructed of red brick, clad externally in dressed flint with Corsham stone dressings and red tile roofs. Internal walls are of red brick, whitened in the 1960s.

The plan comprises a four-bay nave with low aisles, an apsidal west baptistery flanked by entrances, north and south transepts, and a lower two-bay chancel with north and south aisles. The apsidal north aisle forms the Lady Chapel, while the gabled south aisle houses the organ and vestries.

The west front features buttresses and gabled porches on either side of an apsidal baptistery. Above is a west window of four tall lancets under a continuous hood mould, interrupted by a quatrefoiled roundel, with a small flush two-light opening in the gable above. The baptistery has a conical tiled roof and single lancets in flush openings above a moulded cill band. The porches are deeply gabled with pairs of small lights on the outer flanks and stepped blind arcades in the gables. The southern entrance retains boarded doors with strap hinges; the northern entrance has been replaced with glazed outer and inner doors. The buttressed aisles, in three bays, have plain lancets—three per bay—beneath a deep moulded cornice. The clerestory, spanning four and a half bays, contains paired moulded lights under a continuous dentil cornice. Buttressed transepts display tall four-light windows with cusped tracery. The chancel, in two bays, has three-light aisle windows. The east window consists of three tall stepped lancet lights in moulded arches flanked by engaged shafts, beneath a small flush two-light opening in the gable, all framed by prominent gabletted buttresses. The apsidal north chapel has single lancets above a moulded cill band. Vestries and choir rooms to the south have a group of triple lancets at ground floor and a now blind two-light lancet window at first floor, with a similar gable opening. Gables feature gable-end crosses. An inscribed stone slab war memorial in a stepped moulded stone architrave is built into the base of the east wall of the chancel.

The interior has nave arcades with moulded drum piers on square bases and chamfered, slightly pointed arches; the chancel arch is similar. Wide moulded arches open from the nave and chancel aisles into the transepts. The clerestory has paired lancets in wide reveals above a continuous moulded cill band. The east window lancets are flanked by slender annulated shafts, repeated on the flanking chancel walls which are also enriched by a narrow moulded cill band. The nave roof features moulded arch-braced trusses continuing as slightly canted braces to the wall posts; the chancel roof is painted with gilt stars. Most floors are of wood block except the chancel, which is of Hopton Wood stone, and the sanctuary, which is of encaustic tiles.

The sanctuary contains a moulded stone sedilia and painted panelled timber linings with a pierced cresting. The high altar is of Belgian marble with onyx sides; its front, decorated with the Agnus Dei, was given in 1902 in memory of Thomas Simpson who died in the Boer War. A carved wooden triptych presented in 1905, designed by CE Kempe and carved in Oberammergau, stands behind the altar. The tabernacle door is of beaten silver and depicts a pelican. Flanking the east window are figures of saints in carved timber canopies. The south altar and reredos, by CE Kempe, are in red veined alabaster. The north altar, added in 1950 and designed by Michael Tapper, is in white and greenish marble. A timber chancel screen dates to 1905. An iron screen separates the south chancel aisle from the south transept. The octagonal timber pulpit has a crocketted canopy. The stained glass is largely by CE Kempe, with four small windows by Walter Tower.

Arthur William Blomfield (1829-99) was one of the most active and successful church architects of the Gothic Revival. He was the fourth son of Bishop Charles J Blomfield of London (bishop 1828-56), was articled to PC Hardwick, and began independent practice in London in 1856. His early work is characterised by strong muscular qualities and the use of structural polychrome, often with continental influences. He became diocesan architect to Winchester, securing numerous church-building commissions throughout the diocese, and was also architect to the Bank of England from 1883. Blomfield was knighted in 1889 and awarded the RIBA's Royal Gold Medal in 1891.

The church was designed as part of a strong visual and architectural group with the attached church hall to the south and vicarage, all contained behind a flint wall fronting Victoria Road, with the main west entrance set back from Clifton Road. Within the grounds at the east end of the church stands a freestanding memorial cross. The building has been little altered externally or internally, retaining its original plan and principal fittings, and represents an imposing group of buildings built for a modest but expanding suburb of Worthing.