Church Of St Andrew

The Church of St Andrew is a Church of England building dating from the 12th century with subsequent additions and alterations. It is constructed of coursed, squared rubble with a plinth, which is chamfered in places, and features various types of buttressing. The roofs are covered in graduated slate, with the nave having stone copings and low parapets, and the chancel possessing stone copings, an apex cross, and embattled pinnacles at the base of the east end. A bell tower was rebuilt in 1874; it is corbelled out and has a low, slated, pyramidal roof with a parapet and corner pinnacles.

The church consists of a three-bay nave and a two-bay chancel. A north aisle was rebuilt in 1866 under a separate gabled roof. The north wall has three windows, and each end has one window with an oculus above, all with semicircular heads and a Romanesque chevron design. The chancel was rebuilt and enlarged in the 14th century; the north window has a pointed head, while the south window has a pointed head with paired lights, a transom, and external embattlements (probably a low-side window, as the two lower lights have internal rebates for shutters). A 14th-century priest’s door to the south has a pointed head and a continuously moulded surround. A north vestry was added in 1745. The east window was rebuilt in 1883.

The south nave wall contains two windows of different dates; the east window is 16th century, square-headed with two lights, and the west window is late 14th century, square-headed with two ogee traceried lights, both with hoodmoulds and label stops. A gabled south porch has a roof-truss dated 1662 and narrow stone benches internally. Both the inner and outer doors have continuously moulded surrounds with pointed heads; the inner door is 17th-century panelled.

Internally, the nave is plastered. All windows have deep splays. 12th-century columns and responds have moulded bases on plinth blocks; their capitals feature waterleaf, volute, animal, and human head decoration. Square abaci carry unmoulded, double order, semicircular arches with a continuous chamfered hoodmould. Four corbels are located to the east bay above the arch. A 15th-century low, pointed chancel arch has two chamfered orders springing from corbels. A large squint provides a view from the north aisle into the chancel. A narrow blocked opening with a semicircular head is located on the west wall of the chancel, and a stub of an early north wall remains. A small lamp niche with a semicircular head (likely a reused early window) is in the south-west corner. A 13th-century trefoil-headed piscina with an octofoil drain is set into the south wall, and a medieval aumbrey is in the north wall, both with blocked windows.

The font in the nave, which originally had a 17th/18th-century rectangular bowl with moulded sides and an octagonal shaft with moulded blocks and chamfered corners (now demounted and on the floor in the north aisle), has been moved. The chancel floor was raised to the level of the nave floor in the 1860s; the oak communion rail features turned balusters and dates back to the 17th century. A late 19th-century hexagonal wooden pulpit stands on a moulded stone base. The church originally contained two bells, one from the 13th century and the other from the 14th century, featuring an inscription in Lombardic capitals.