Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

This late 13th and 14th-century church in Barnwell is built of squared coursed limestone with ashlar dressings, roofed with Collyweston slate and lead. The chancel was remodelled by Sir George Gilbert Scott around 1851. The building comprises an aisled nave, chancel, vestry and organ chamber, west tower, and south porch.

The chancel's south elevation displays two windows of two and three lights in Perpendicular style, with transoms, cusping and four-centred arch heads. The leftmost window has a low-side sill. A small 20th-century priest door between the windows has a roll-moulded head and one order of shafts, probably reset. A shallow gable roof with plain ashlar parapet and finial crowns the elevation. The north side has one similar two-light Perpendicular window to the left. A 19th-century gabled vestry and organ chamber projects forward to the right, with a two-light north window and a similar window in the return wall to the right of a priest door. Both are covered by a steeply gabled roof with Collyweston slates and ashlar gable parapets.

The south aisle comprises three bays with two-light squared head windows with hood moulds and carved label stops, and a small single-light window to the far right. Shallow two-stage buttresses sit at the corners. A lean-to roof with plain ashlar parapets and short finials at the corners covers the aisle. The east end has a single lancet window with cusping and a two-light west window, also cusped.

The south porch is gabled centrally, with a two-centred outer arch of three hollows decorated with nail-head work. Cluster shaft responds frame the inner doorway, which has a roll-moulded arch with two rows of nail-head decoration and two orders of shafts. The roof is steeply gabled with Collyweston slates, ashlar gable parapets and finials to both gables.

The north aisle has four bays with three two-light windows. The leftmost window contains a tracery circle with three spherical triangles; the others have quatrefoils. A north doorway to the right of centre has two orders of shafts, a moulded arch and a foliated frieze on the line of capitals. The nave clerestory displays three two-light windows with elongated quatrefoils. A shallow gabled roof with moulded corbel table, plain ashlar parapet, finial and gargoyles completes this elevation.

The west tower rises in three stages with a plinth at its base. It is unbuttressed. The west door has a moulded arch head with three orders of shafts. A two-light window sits above it. In the south face of the second stage, a window displays outer and inner bands of nail-head decoration with a central moulded band. The upper stage features two-light bell-chamber openings on each face, decorated with fine dog-tooth ornament. A polygonal stair turret to the south-east corner is corbelled at its base. The tower is crowned with an ashlar broach spire having three tiers of lucarnes.

Inside, the nave arcade comprises three bays with double-chamfered arches, quatrefoil piers and cluster shaft responds, except for one plain circular pier to the west of the north arcade. A double-chamfered chancel arch is supported on clusters of three short colonettes on corbels. The tower arch is triple-chamfered, dying into the impost. A 19th-century double-chamfered arch connects the chancel to the organ chamber. The tower ceiling is rib-vaulted. The chancel roof is Perpendicular in style with some original moulded cross beams and moulded purlins. The aisle roofs retain some original timbers, restored in the 20th century with some carvings reset; the north aisle tie beam is a 20th-century work.

The north aisle east wall contains a tripartite reredos with ogee-headed arches, the central arch wider than those flanking it. The inner arches have trefoil heads with foliated decoration and a decorated frieze above. The south aisle east window is flanked by Perpendicular niches with canopied heads. Remains of a rood loft stair stand to the left. A plain piscina sits in the wall to the right of the chancel. Double sedilia to the right of the chancel altar have flat ogee arch heads. The pulpit is Jacobean. Most other furnishings are 19th-century. An octagonal font with trefoil-head decoration stands on a reset base.

Medieval stained glass fragments are retained in the west tower window and in the tracery of two north aisle windows. The chancel windows, vestry window, one north aisle window and two south aisle windows contain 19th-century stained glass.

Monuments include a brass plate of Christopher Freeman (died 1610) with semi-kneeling figures to the right of the altar. A demi-figure monument to Reverend Nicholas Latham (died 1620) occupies a niche with an arch head, inscribed panel, scrolls and armorial device above, also to the right of the altar. A mid-19th-century tablet in the vestry commemorates the Oddie family. 20th-century wall plaques in the chancel and north aisle honour H.R.H. Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and H.R.H. Prince William of Gloucester respectively.