Church Of St Andrew

Church of St Andrew, Corton Denham

Parish church rebuilt in 1869–70 to the design of Charles Baker-Green. The building is constructed of hamstone ashlar with plain clay tile roofs, mostly between coped gables but with a hipped chevet to the east end.

The plan comprises a one-and-a-half-bay chancel, four-bay nave with north aisle, a north-east vestry, south porch, and west tower. The style is largely based on early 15th-century precedent. The chancel is built into the hillside and features a plinth with offset buttresses to each chamfered angle, a panelled parapet, and ornamental clay tile ridge with wrought iron cross finial. The chevet has cusped single lancet windows with arched headstops to the north-east and south-east chamfers, and two-light windows in early 15th-century tracery style with labels to the north, east, and south faces. The nave displays similar two-light windows and bay buttresses, with a plain eaves band course. The south porch at bay two has a simple hollow-moulded pointed arch. The north-east vestry features a cusped lancet east window and simple north door. The north aisle has small cusped lancets with pointed-arched labels and headstops between offset bay buttresses, a two-light west window, and a simple west door.

The three-stage tower has a plinth, diagonal offset corner buttresses rising two stages high, string courses, and a battlemented parapet with corner finials. An octagonal plain stair turret rises from the north-east corner, taller than the tower itself, with an outer door at its base. The west door, reached by two steps, sits within a pointed-arched opening under a square stopped label with quatrefoils in the spandrels; above is a three-light window in 15th-century style. The first stage is otherwise plain. Stage two has two-light transomed 15th-century pointed-arched windows to the north, west, and south faces. Stage three has similar windows without transomes on all faces, fitted with pierced stone baffles.

The interior is lined throughout with unplastered ashlar. The nave has an arched rib ceiling and 15th-century style arcade. There is a hollowed wide chancel arch and a panelled vaulted timber roof to the chancel. Furnishings include an octagonal stone pulpit with richly carved panels and a matching small octagonal font with black marble shafts at the corners. Sited in a floor pit in the nave, covered by cast-iron lattice-pattern floor gratings, is a cast-iron warm-air heating stove complete with its combustion chamber, manufactured by H. B. and H. Petter of Yeovil. The church also contains some painted and stencil decoration.

A church has likely occupied the site since the 12th century. The present building was financed by Edward Berkley Portman, Viscount Portman. The church survives relatively unaltered as a balanced, single-phase composition and is noted for the quality of its architectural detailing, both external and internal, the good design of its furnishings, and the survival of its contemporary heating stove.