Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

This is an Anglican parish church of exceptional architectural quality, primarily dating from the 15th century but containing significant 13th-century work in the chancel and 14th-century work in the north-east chapel. The building is constructed of rubble stone and ashlar with stone tile roofs.

The church comprises a west tower, nave with aisles, south porch, chancel, and north-east and south-east chapels. The tower is a particularly fine ashlar structure of three stages, begun in 1434. It features broad diagonal buttresses, a south-east stair turret with a crocketted spirelet, panelled battlements, and corner pinnacles. The buttresses carry attached pinnacles positioned on set-offs central to each tower stage. The four-centred arched west doorway is fitted with an oak plank door and flanked by a deep-set four-light west window with statues in canopied niches on either side. The bell-openings are three-light with pierced stone panelling.

The nave and aisles are arranged in three bays. The clerestory windows are two-light with hoods, whilst the aisle windows are long three-light flat-headed openings with carved stops to the hoods. The structure features battlements, buttresses, and east-end pinnacles to the aisles.

The south porch is of ashlar construction and appears to have been substantially rebuilt in the 19th century. It has a chamfered pointed south doorway. The chancel extends two bays, with the north-east chapel occupying one bay and the south-east chapel one bay. The south-east chapel has a rood stair projecting from it, a flat-headed three-light south window, and an arched three-light east window with a low door at the angle to the chancel. The chancel contains a 15th-century three-light south window and, at its east end, four trefoil-headed lancets with a quatrefoil above, dating from the late 13th century. The north-east chapel features a three-light 14th-century east window with flowing tracery and a two-light 15th-century flat-headed north window.

The interior is distinguished by considerable architectural refinement. The tower contains fan-vaulting and a tall tower arch, with a 15th-century door to the stair turret. The nave piers are slim, with four shafts and four hollows in section, decorated with fine carved foliage and figure capitals. Carved head corbels to the nave and aisles support the roofs, which appear to date from the 19th century but may incorporate reused bosses to the aisles and timber elements to the nave arched braced collar roof. An east-end rose window dates from the 19th century.

The chancel arch is exceptionally carved with three statuettes under canopies to each arch and plant stem carving to the flanking moulding. The chancel has a boarded roof and features a remarkable seven-bay east-wall arcade from the 13th century, renewed around 1851. The arcade has trefoil heads and carved spandrels beneath the east window, which is set in a splayed reveal flanked by shafted lancet panels. The chancel fittings date from around 1851 and include floor tiles bearing Scrope arms, a family pew, an east window by Ward & Nixon, and a south window by Gibbs.

The south-east chapel contains an organ and Scrope armorial glass in the east window. The north-east chapel preserves a 15th-century oak screen, a fine effigy of a knight dated around 1300, and an 1851 Gothic canopied monument to the Scrope family. It also contains Scrope armorial glass by Ward & Nixon in the east window and to the north window.

The nave contains a 15th-century wood pulpit and a remarkable 14th-century stone font with an octagonal bowl featuring a book-rest on a quatrefoil base with openwork carved piers. The aisle and south-east chapel east windows contain patterned quarry glass with coloured borders, also dating from around 1851. An inscribed tablet of 1588 to R. Gill is located in the north aisle. Various 18th and 19th-century wall monuments are positioned in the aisles and tower, notably a monument to W. Fisher dated 1764 in the south aisle and two earlier 18th-century pedimented monuments beneath the tower. The west window dates from around 1851 and is by Ward & Nixon.

The church was restored around 1850–1851.