Church Of St Andrew

Church of St. Andrew, Donhead St. Andrew

An Anglican parish church of the 12th, 14th and 15th centuries, with substantial restorations in the 19th century (south aisle restored 1826, tower restored 1893, general restorations in 1838 and 1875). The building is constructed of dressed limestone with tiled roofs.

The plan comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, west tower, chancel and north vestry.

The south porch, probably 14th-century, is gabled with diagonal buttresses and a moulded pointed doorway with hoodmould. The south aisle is 15th-century, featuring four 4-light square-headed windows with ogee lights and hoodmoulds, diagonal buttresses to the sides, a string course and battlemented parapet with saddleback coping. The east window of the south aisle is a 3-light pointed window with hoodmould.

The nave clerestory contains three 19th-century 2-light square-headed windows. The south side of the nave, to the right of the aisle, has a tall 19th-century 2-light pointed window.

The chancel has 2-light square-headed Perpendicular windows to the south and north sides, and a 5-light Perpendicular window with hoodmould to the east. It has diagonal buttresses and a battlemented parapet with saddleback coping.

The flat-roofed vestry to the north features a pointed east doorway and 2-light windows to the north, with a battlemented parapet.

The north aisle has two 3-light square-headed restored 15th-century windows with hoodmoulds and a battlemented parapet. The nave clerestory on this side has three windows matching those on the south side. The west end of both aisles feature 19th-century 4-light Perpendicular windows.

The three-stage west tower has diagonal buttresses, string courses and a polygonal stair turret attached to the north side. The west doorway is double-chamfered and pointed, with 3-light Perpendicular windows above. The second stage has a 2-light mullioned window. The bellstage contains 2-light square-headed louvred windows. A moulded string course with gargoyles runs beneath the battlemented parapet, which is surmounted by broken corner pinnacles.

Interior

The porch contains medieval floor tiles with star motif and a collar-rafter roof. The doorway is double cyma-moulded in Perpendicular style with a 19th-century door.

The nave has a 19th-century 4½-bay queen-post roof with cusping and arch-braced collars to the half-bays. The arcades are 3-bay structures of 15th-century date with double cyma-moulded arches on cavetto-moulded piers with attached shafts. The western responds feature carved heads and angels holding a shield of the Instruments of the Passion, with the south example restored.

A 15th-century cyma-moulded tower arch rises on 19th-century responds. The north wall of the tower contains reset fragments of 14th and 15th-century tracery. A chamfered pointed doorway provides access to the stairs.

The chancel arch is 15th-century cyma-moulded on attached shafts. The chancel has a 19th-century 3-bay hammer-beam roof and a 19th-century tiled floor by Godwin.

The north vestry, probably occupying the site of a former chapel, is reached from the chancel through a 12th-century round-arched opening. A 19th-century arch from the north aisle gives access; a blocked pointed archway to the right formerly led to the rood loft. The vestry contains an arched aumbry.

Fittings and Monuments

The church contains 19th-century pews, a limestone cylindrical font and an octagonal panelled wooden pulpit. Wrought-iron and brass candelabras are present. The chancel contains stained glass of the 1850s by W. Wailes, and the east window of the south aisle dates to circa 1890.

Wall tablets include a baroque stone and marble tablet with composite columns and segmental pediment with cartouche to John Gummage (died 1690), and a classical marble with skull to Matthew Bowles (died 1737) in the north aisle. A marble tablet with Ionic pilasters to Richard Fezzard (died 1713) is in the south aisle. A large marble monument to John Cooke, Captain of HMS Bellepheron, killed at Trafalgar in 1805, is also present.

The church contains two bells dated 1425 and 1713.