Church Of St Andrew

Church of Saint Andrew

This parish church dates from the early 14th century in its chancel, with the remainder built in the 15th century and subjected to minimal restoration in the 19th century. It is constructed of local lias stone roughly squared with Ham Stone dressings, with plain clay tile roofs between stepped coped gables topped by cross finials.

The building comprises a two-cell plan with a 2-bay chancel and 4-bay nave, plus a west tower, south porch, and north-east vestry. The chancel features a plinth, angled corner buttresses with offsets, and a central short buttress beneath the east window. An eaves course runs around the walls. The east window has five lights with late geometric tracery in an uneven clover-leaf pattern, set under a pointed arched label with headstops and a quatrefoil gable vent above. The north wall contains two small cusped 2-light windows, one flat-headed and one with a quatrefoil set in a pointed arch with plain label. The south wall has two similar windows, and between them a moulded pointed arched doorway with curl-stopped label.

The nave has a plinth, bay buttresses, and eaves course. On the north side, a cusped light leads to a pulpit recess, followed by three 3-light Perpendicular traceried windows in shallow coved recesses. The third bay contains no window, but instead a blocked moulded pointed arched doorway. The south wall has similar windows in the two eastern bays, with an additional small 17th-century window set high to the east. In this bay hangs a wall monument with hood and simple swag surround commemorating Katherine Coombe, who died in 1729. The western window is also 3-light, but its tracery combines reticulation and Perpendicular work, set under a pointed arch label with plain stops.

The south porch is simple in design, with corner buttresses and a coped gable. Its inner and outer doorways are moulded pointed arches; the inner door is of considerable age. The porch features a rib and panel roof with ornate bosses, bench seats, and a stoup. The north-east corner vestry is simple, with a 2-light east window matching those of the chancel.

The tower comprises three stages with a plinth and angled offset corner buttresses that extend two storeys high. String courses with gargoyles run around the top course, beneath a battlemented parapet. An offset rectangular projection on the south-east corner, two stages high, houses the stairs. A moulded pointed arched doorway on the west face has headstops to the arched label. Above this, in the second stage, is a 3-light Perpendicular traceried window, and on the south face a small rectangular window. The third stage has paired cusped light openings on all faces without labels, set to flat heads and fitted with stone baffles. The tower is topped by a pyramidal tiled roof with weathervane behind the parapet.

Interior features include a 14th-century piscina linked to a 3-seater cusped ogee-arched sedilia in the chancel. The chancel also contains some 19th-century work, including the ceiling. The chancel arch, probably 15th-century, has double chamfered orders running into plain chamfered jambs, with a very wide low screen wall. The east window label is internally finished with headstops.

The nave contains a moulded timber rib and panelled ceiling with ornate bosses, forming a slightly pointed vault. A simple piscina is set in the south wall. The former rood loft stair in the north wall has semi-circular arched openings and also gives access to an exceptional timber pulpit, dated 1628. This pulpit is a panelled octagon with integral baluster screen and tester. At the west end are some 15th-century pews with plain bench ends. An octagonal font with plain bowl, shaft, and base stands in the tower arch. By the south door is a stoup, apparently linked to that outside in the porch. Additional fittings include two chests, one possibly 14th-century and one late 16th-century. The floor contains two 17th-century Keinton stone slab memorials: one to John Clacey, who died in 1640, and one to Joye Barker, who died in 1637.