Former St Andrew'S Church

The former St Andrew’s Church, built in 1860, was designed by Thomas Talbot Bury. It was constructed to serve the expanding northeastern area of Bridport and closed around 1977 before being sold for use as storage and a workshop.

The church is built of coursed and squared yellow limestone with limestone ashlar dressings, and has blue slate roofs. The design is in the late Early English style. The prominent west gable faces the road and features a large stepped bellcote with three bell openings. Below the bellcote is a large window composed of five stepped lancet windows with a hoodmould. A shallow, lean-to porch with a moulded arched doorway is attached to the west end. The north and south sides have two-light windows with simple plate tracery, set between buttresses with two set-offs. The east gable contains a three-light Geometric window with tracery of circled quatrefoils, and a small oculus above, also with quatrefoil tracery.

The interior was partially inspected in 2002 and the west end of the nave has been partitioned off with a concrete block wall and a ceiling installed, obscuring some original features. The open arched braced roof remains. The font was removed, but the pulpit remains. A simple, square-headed timber reredos and the altar are still in place. Two stained glass windows, originally dating from 1865 and made by Heaton, Butler & Bayne, were removed from the nave in 1979 and donated to the Ely stained glass museum. Fragments of these, or possibly further works by the same company, were reinstalled at the Church of St John in West Bay. Good quality stained glass remains in the chancel.

Thomas Talbot Bury (1811-77) trained under A.C. Pugin and collaborated with both A.C. and A.W.N. Pugin, contributing to details for the Houses of Parliament. He designed numerous churches and other public buildings. The church’s robust Early English Gothic Revival design and its substantial stepped bellcote make a significant contribution to the streetscape, notably when viewed from the east. Despite interior alterations and the removal of some fixtures, the building retains architectural merit and is designated at Grade II.