United Reformed and Methodist Church of St Andrew, Skipton

This church was built between 1914 and 1916 to designs by James Totty of Rotherham, combining Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts influences. It stands to the rear of a green and drive accessed from the south.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of well-dressed and finely carved Eastburn sandstone and Ancaster limestone, with pitched and hipped Burlington slate roofs. Interior fixtures and fittings are of decorative Austrian oak, and the windows feature leaded stained glass.

Plan and Layout

The church is aligned north-south on a cruciform plan, with semi-octagonal half-turrets projecting from the south front, a rectangular side-porch to the north-east of the sanctuary, and a square vestry block to the north-west.

Exterior: South Elevation

The principal south elevation is three bays wide and two storeys high, dominated by an Art Nouveau shaped gable end. The walls are of squared and snecked sandstone with six ashlar band courses, a plain chamfered plinth, and square angle buttresses rising above the gable and terminating in moulded leaded capstones. The upper sections of these buttresses are ashlar, elaborately carved with grapevine motifs representing the 'Tree of Life', probably executed by Frank Tory & Sons of Sheffield.

The upper gable contains a wide central three-light window with curvilinear stone bar-tracery, a moulded soffit, quoined ashlar jambs, and carved grape and grape-leaf label and corbel stops. Substantial stone mullions rise through the elevation and above the gable to form slender square buttresses, also carved with 'Tree of Life' motifs. The apex of the gable is crowned by a carved grapevine hip knob above a blind tracery panel.

Below the central window is a matching Art Nouveau shaped gable-end porch with 'Tree of Life' carvings on its square buttresses. The porch gable has blind curvilinear tracery beneath a decorative metal finial. The door surround is a pointed segmental arch with moulded soffit, hoodmould, and grape-leaf head-stops, containing a blind seven-panel tracery fanlight above a pair of chamfered flat lintel entrances. Each entrance has two-leaf wooden tracery panel doors with 21st-century glazing. A triangular arch window is positioned on either side of the porch.

Set back from the main elevation are two-storey semi-octagonal half-turrets with hipped roofs and finials, three ashlar band courses, and triangular arched ashlar quoined windows—the upper windows embellished with hoodmoulds and grape-leaf head-stops. Each turret has a projecting side-porch accessed by three steps. The south elevation of each turret has a central window on each floor. The return features a simple gable-end porch with undecorated square buttresses, containing a pointed segmental arch ashlar doorway with grape-leaf hoodmould head-stops, a blind three-panel tracery fanlight, and two-leaf wooden tracery panel doors. Above the side-porch is a triangular arched window.

Other Exterior Elevations

All remaining elevations are constructed in matching squared and snecked sandstone with a plain chamfered plinth, ashlar band courses, and ashlar quoined pointed segmental arch windows of varying stone tracery lights, most embellished with grape-leaf head-stops to hoodmoulds.

The east and west returns of the five-bay nave have four stepped and capped buttresses and four pointed segmental arch windows—two full-height six-light bar-tracery windows to the south and two squat three-light windows to the north above a two-bay transept. The transepts consist of two equal pitched roof gables with square buttresses and flat roof coping. Each gable contains a three-light window and a single-bay blind return.

Attached to the north end of the nave and transepts is a two-storey, three-bay, pitched-roof sanctuary; a split-storey, single-bay, flat-roofed north-east porch; and a two-storey, two-bay north-west vestry.

The sanctuary gable end has an off-set flat lintel external doorway (leading to the hydraulic organ blower), with a pair of flat-lintel windows to the east and two separate flat-lintel windows to the west. Above, at the east and west ends of the elevation, are two tall upper windows, and in the apex of the gable is a window with ashlar bands running through sill and lintel.

The north-east sanctuary porch's north elevation rises from single to two storeys, each with a central window, and its east elevation contains a porch door with gable-end door surround, moulded coping, and a blind slit window.

The north-west vestry's north elevation has an off-centre external chimney stack and north-east ventilation stack, between which is a narrow flat lintel ground-floor window with wooden fenestration and an ashlar and broken quoined triangular arch window offset above. Its two-bay west elevation has a triangular arched voussoir doorway with a wide triangular voussoir arched window to the north. The first floor has two matching windows, the south window narrower than the north.

Interior: Entrance Vestibule

The entrance vestibule has a terrazzo floor and oak boarded dado. The south wall contains a pair of stained glass war memorial windows: one depicts two knights and '1914' with the names of nine fallen servicemen; the other depicts Christ Risen and '1919' with the names of eight fallen servicemen.

Four pointed segmental arch doorways with oak tracery panel doors provide access into the half-turrets and the nave. The east half-turret contains a decorative wooden gallery staircase; the west contains a former ground-floor cloak room and a first-floor ancillary room to the gallery. The two doors leading into the nave are set either side of six 21st-century plain glazed arched windows.

Interior: Nave

The double-height nave has bracketed hammer-beam roof trusses and moulded stone corbels supporting an oak boarded ceiling. A string course runs around the windows with an oak boarded dado beneath. The windows contain leaded lights with Arts and Crafts stained glass motif windows by William Gamon & Co of Chester, present throughout the church.

A substantial quantity of warmly coloured Austrian oak fixtures and fittings remains in situ. A rear gallery has steeply raked oak seating behind a slightly concave oak tracery panelled parapet resting on cast iron columns by Macfarlane's Saracen Foundry in Glasgow. Below the gallery are three blocks of moderately raked and slightly curved oak pews, and a further block of straight and steeply curved pews is arranged between nave and transepts.

Interior: Transepts and Sanctuary

Each transept forms a two-bay arcade of pointed segmental arches with hoodmoulds, and has an oak blocked floor by the Yorkshire Wood Block Flooring Co of Leeds.

The sanctuary wall has two string courses and a wide full-height moulded arch with half-moulded octagonal abacus and grape-leaf corbels. A two-step dais set in front of the arch accommodates the pulpit (displaced west), communion furniture, and chancel and choir screens, all decorated with curvilinear tracery and square stopped panelling. Steeply raked choir stalls rise to a panelled three-manual organ set at gallery level, built in 1902 by Abbot and Smith of Leeds for the former chapel and extended in 1916 by Laycock and Bannister of Keighley in a widened case designed by James Totty.

Either side of the sanctuary arch is a pointed segmental arch gallery containing oak tracery screens. Below is a pointed segmental arch doorway with oak tracery panel door. The east door gives access to the sanctuary side-porch entrance, with cloak room and lavatories. The west door gives access to the two-storey vestry.

Interior: Vestry and Ancillary Spaces

The vestry hallway has an external west door, two east doors into a store and lavatories, a ground-floor Minister's vestry and lavatory, and a wooden staircase (set above a safe) leading to the Choir's vestry. Both vestry rooms are said to contain original fixtures and fittings including fireplaces, music cupboards, and pigeon holes. The hydraulic organ blower room is accessed externally.

War Memorials and Commemorations

The nave contains war memorials: the Congregational Church's carved oak and brass plaque, Water Street Methodist Church's engraved brass plaque, and Gargrave Road Primitive Methodist Church's 'pictus certus' mosaic marble tablet with marble frame. There is also a memorial to John Thomas Dawson, half-brother of William Harbutt Dawson (noted historian and adviser to Lloyd George), who was a strong supporter of the church.

Boundary Walls and Gates

The low parapet wall and gateposts of the church's south boundary wall, a wrought iron gate attached to the vestry, and a short section of low parapet wall with wrought iron railings attached to the east side of the sanctuary were part of the 20th-century design by James Totty. The south boundary wall retains four boundary wall piers, two of which form the entrance way. Each square pier has a square buttress at each corner rising above a domed capstone. Its north and south faces are decorated with a blind tracery panel below a moulded string of plain and egg and foliate carving. The entrance gate piers have been repositioned and dropped in height with the loss of the parapet railings.