Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

This is a parish church built in 1869 in the Decorated style to the designs of G E Street, with contractors Barlow and Butlin. The building has been substantially extended and modified since its original construction.

The church was enlarged with a north aisle added in 1925 as a First World War memorial, designed by Blackwell and Riddy of Kettering at a cost of £4,300. The architects adopted a sympathetic style matching the original. The chancel underwent refurbishment in 1949, and a northeast chapel was completed in 1953. A choir vestry was added in 1900.

The plan comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a chancel with a transeptal southeast organ chamber and choir vestry, a southwest porch, and a bell turret that rises from the valley between the nave and south aisle. Plans existed to complete the north aisle with a northeast vestry, but these were never executed. The two-bay arcade to the proposed vestry is now blocked off externally with a brick wall.

The church is constructed of squared masonry brought to course with stone slate roofs; the north aisle wall is partly brick. Chamfered strings run across the exterior. The chancel has east buttresses with gables, a five-light east window with Geometric Decorated tracery, and two two-light traceried north windows. The nave has west-end buttresses and a four-light Decorated traceried west window above a cinquefoil-headed doorway. The aisles feature two-light west windows. The south aisle is buttressed with two windows per bay; the eastern bay windows are larger with more elaborate tracery. The north aisle has very limited external visual access. Its east wall has a shallow gabled brick projection containing a traceried window. The southeast transept displays a three-light traceried south window and a doorway on the west side with a pair of trefoil-headed windows in a square frame. Three similar windows appear on the transept's east wall, which also has a high-set demi-window containing three quatrefoils. The southwest porch has a narrow two-centred doorway with chamfered moulding. The belfry rises curiously from a low point in the roof, with trefoil-headed openings and four gables to the ashlar masonry spire.

The interior features unplastered ashlar masonry throughout. A moulded chancel arch on corbels divides the spaces. The arcades have double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers without capitals; the mouldings die into the piers. The 1925 north arcade was designed to match the south arcade. The nave roof is a substantial arch-braced design with tracery between the principal rafters and collars, with ashlar pieces between the purlins and common rafters. The chancel has a common rafter arch-braced roof. The belfry rises from the floor as an octagonal structure.

Fittings include an altar with oak riddel posts and a communion rail, both of 1949. Trefoil-headed sedilia on shafts and encaustic tiles decorate the chancel. Original choir stalls feature poppyhead ends and open fronts. A polygonal timber pulpit designed by Leslie T Moore and given in 1929 has blind traceried sides on a wineglass stem with a tester. An octagonal font of 1870 has blind traceried sides on an octagonal stem. Chairs in the nave date from 1895. The east window and one window in the south aisle were made by Kempe in 1906. Two windows in the north aisle from the 1920s are by William Morris and Co.

Although designed by the distinguished architect G E Street, this was not one of his outstanding churches. The large 1925 extension, whilst not a significant addition architecturally, was never completed. Most fittings postdate the original building and are not of outstanding quality individually. The church remains a building of definite quality and character of special architectural interest.