Parish Church Of St Andrew

The Parish Church of St Andrew is a building of 12th-century origin, significantly altered and enlarged in the 14th, 17th, and late 19th centuries. The walls are a mix of stone, flint, and plaster, with slate roofs featuring coped gables. The church comprises a nave, a north transept, a chancel, a north vestry, a south porch, and a west tower.

The west tower, dating to the 14th century, is constructed of ironstone rubble with angle buttresses and a battlemented parapet with crocketed corner pinnacles. It has two-light traceried louvred windows to the belfry, and a two-light traceried window with carved heads as hoodmould stops in the lower stage of the west wall. The north wall of the nave, from the 17th century, is plastered and contains two square-headed windows with two lights each. The north transept, also 17th century, features plastered walls with ashlar quoins and a plinth. It has an elliptical window with a raised stone surround, and below it a two-light square-headed window, also with a raised surround.

The chancel and vestry were constructed in 1870 by architect G Evans, and are characterized by flint walls with random ashlar inserts. The north wall of the chancel holds a two-light traceried window. The east window comprises three lights with reticulated tracery, flanked by canopied niches with statues. The south wall of the chancel contains a priest’s door and two two-light traceried windows. The south wall of the nave has been refaced in the 17th century using ashlar. It features a three-light window with round-headed lights, a two-light window with a truncated head, and a square-headed two-light window, all situated east and west of the porch respectively.

The 17th-century south porch is constructed of ashlar, with a round-headed doorway and a sundial above. The inner 12th-century doorway is round-headed, with a single order and moulded imposts.

Internally, the walls are plastered. The nave has a 17th-century barrel ceiling with plastered panels, moulded ribs, and bosses painted with Royal emblems. A similar roof is present in the north transept, known as the Savage Pew. Fragments of late 16th-century wall paintings remain above the tower arch. The transept contains 17th-century painted cartouches on the walls. Notable fixtures include several 18th-century wall tablets and a good 17th-century monument to Sir John Trenchard. The chancel, in an “Early English” style, features polished marble shafts and stiff-leaf capitals at the chancel arch and an arch-braced collar beam roof. A 13th-century font with a circular bowl and stem is also present. Other furnishings date from the 19th century.