Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew

This is a church built in 1877 by G E Street for Sir Tatton Sykes, located in Heslerton village. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar on a chamfered plinth, with polished grey stone columns. The roofs are tiled except for the spire, which is of stone slates, and wrought-iron crosses crown both the spire and chancel.

The building comprises a west porch, a five-bay nave, a south baptistry, a north tower, a raised chancel, and a vestry. The west porch is an open narthex supported on columns with foliate capitals. The pointed west door features two orders of moulding, the inner decorated with fleuron work, with paired side shafts and a continuous hoodmould on foliate corbels. Above the narthex is a recessed window of five stepped lancets beneath a semicircular moulded arch, crowned with a crocketed gable cross.

On the south side, the baptistry projects at the western end, displaying a sexfoil window in the gable end and three lancets with side shafts on the east face, accompanied by a gabled buttress. The north side of the nave mirrors this arrangement to the west of the tower.

The two-stage square tower is angle-buttressed and sits on a chamfered roll-moulded plinth. It contains a north-west vice with slit openings. The pointed west door has leafy iron hinges and sits beneath a continuous hoodmould. Above are pointed recessed windows of three stepped lancets with slender shafts and moulded capitals. A sexfoil window appears to the east, and a band of three lancets runs around the upper edge of this stage on all sides except the south.

The octagonal bell-stage is broached at its base and features louvred lancet openings recessed beneath a continuous hoodmould. Between the bell openings stand four statues, originally intended for Bristol Cathedral, mounted on carved brackets beneath trefoil-headed canopies. Above this rises an octagonal spire with a corbel table base, decorated with lucarnes and quatrefoils recessed in roundels.

The chancel windows are lancets beneath pointed arches on shafts with foliate capitals, with moulded sill and impost bands. They are separated by dwarf shouldered buttresses on double-chamfered bases, which continue as pilasters above the impost band. The vestry projects to the north and features an east window of five stepped lancets beneath a gable end, topped with a half-conical roof to the apse and a wheel gable cross. All gables are coped, with pierced cresting applied to the nave, baptistry, and vestry roofs. Splendid castellated rainwater hoppers with tourelles survive around the eaves.

Internally, the tall pointed tower arch has two orders, the inner on shafts with moulded capitals, the outer roll-moulded. A similar chancel arch rises on clustered shafts with moulded capitals beneath a leaf-stopped hoodmould. A low pointed vestry arch, north of the chancel, is keel-moulded. All window openings feature shafts with foliate capitals and leaf-stopped hoodmoulds with moulded sill and impost bands.

The chancel contains double sedilia beneath trefoil arches decorated with dogtooth moulding and side shafts, continuous beneath a leaf-stopped hoodmould, and two trefoil-headed piscinae. The tower vestry-door tympanum is carved in low relief with a charming depiction of the Annunciation.

Original fittings remain intact throughout. The font is a lobed octagonal design with carved sides on a pedestal of clustered columns, topped with a flat cover enriched with fleur-de-lys wrought ironwork. A polished grey stone pulpit stands in the church, and wrought-iron baptistry and rood screens survive, the latter mounted on a polished grey stone plinth. A painted polyptych altarpiece is in place.

All stained glass by Clayton and Bell remains. Notable works include a delightful Creation window largely hidden by the organ and a Nativity window in the west.

The roofs comprise four bays of nave with timber wagon-vaulting, the fifth bay cross-vaulted in timber. The chancel and tower are rib-vaulted in stone, the chancel having a centre boss over the apse and the tower an oculus. The baptistry is tunnel-vaulted.

The church is remarkable as a complete survival of a Street design, unaltered with all original fittings preserved intact.