Details
731/1/18 CHURCH STREET
11-OCT-1949 (South side)
CHURCH OF SAINT ANDREW
GV II*
St Andrew is an Anglican parish church retaining a significant proportion of C14 fabric, the majority of the church dating from 1877, by William Butterfield, and additions of 1895/6 by Ewan Christian to Butterfield's design.
MATERIALS: The church is built from Bath stone with some detailing in red Alton stone, and is set under a grey slate roof.
PLAN: The church is roughly rectangular on plan, with projecting sanctuary, choir vestry and north and south porches, and towers at the west and north-east.
EXTERIOR: The building consists of two towers, nave with inner and outer north aisles and south aisle, Lady Chapel, choir, sanctuary, vestries and north and south porches. To the exterior, the west tower is the visible remaining C14 element, a three-stage tower of squared and coursed limestone with rectangular slit windows, paired louvred openings to the bell chamber, and castellation. The remainder of the church is Butterfield's work, in a robust Gothic style, with a continuous roof line, employing geometric tracery to the windows. The body of the church is of five bays; the north elevation has a two-storey, north-west porch and a tall north-east tower with bellchamber, surmounted by pinnacles and a spire. The C19 tower and spire have high quality polychrome work, using a variety of elements and materials, and a decorative fishscale slate roof. The north side has two aisles and a clerestory to the nave, with hierarchical windows; those to the ground floor are tripartite windows of paired lancets and cinquefoils. The south side has a single aisle with similar windows to those in the north elevation, though these are paired and each pair has a continuous drip mould. There is a large rose window above the organ chamber.
INTERIOR: To the interior, the former nave and north aisle are reused from the C14 church, becoming the inner and outer north aisles of Butterfield's church. The arcade between the two is of pointed arches carried on slender octagonal columns. The former chancel was converted to a Lady Chapel in the early C20. Butterfield's church has nave and south aisle, choir and sanctuary, organ chamber and vestries, one of which is housed in the base of the C19 tower. The nave arcades are pointed arches carried on muscular piers of banded red and cream stone, with carved capitals; the style is generally early English, though adapted. The interior is highly decorative, increasing in complexity and richness from the west to the east, culminating in the richly decorated marble and polychrome sanctuary. The structural elements of the building are exposed stone, in alternating bands of red and cream stone, with both colours used for architectural details. There are elaborate stencilled ceilings, polychrome tiles to the floor and some wall surfaces, and marble fittings to the east end, where the sanctuary is articulated by a rich decorative scheme, which is prefigured by the polychrome marble chancel arch, springing from foliate carved capitals. There is an extensive stained glass scheme running throughout the church; the east window, showing Christ in Glory, is by the renowned firm of Clayton and Bell, as is the west window. The scheme of stained glass in the remainder of the church is currently unattributed but may be by Alexander Gibbs; it is an extensive scheme with figures from the Old and New Testaments and reads as a narrative around the church. The font is octagonal, dating from Butterfield's rebuilding, in polychrome marble. The pulpit is of oak, with traceried Gothic superstructure set on a marble base of clustered columns. The oak altar, and oak and pine pews, remain from Butterfield's original scheme for the building. The doors throughout have typically exuberant and detailed ironwork to Butterfield's designs. The organ is of several phases, the earliest dating from the end of the C17. A number of memorials dating from the C18 and earlier C19 are reset at the west end of the north aisle.
HISTORY: The current church of St Andrew originated in the C14; the medieval church consisted of west tower, nave, chancel and north aisle. In the 1870s, the church, which had become unsafe, was rebuilt by William Butterfield on a much larger footprint, which incorporated the surviving elements of the earlier building. The west tower was retained at the west end of the new church, the nave and aisle of the medieval church became the parallel north aisles of the new building, and the former chancel became the Lady Chapel. To this core was added a new nave, choir, sanctuary, south aisle and organ chamber, and north and south porches. In 1895/6, further additions were made by Ewan Christian to Butterfield's original designs, including the two vestries and the tall north east tower and steeple. The building has remained virtually unaltered since, with the exception of the glassing in of a section of the outer north aisle to create a parish office, and the insertion of a kitchen and lavatories at the base of the tower.
SOURCES: Victoria County History: A History of the County of Warwick Volume 6: Knightlow hundred (1951) 202-210
Rob Parker-Gulliford: St Andrew's Church - a Guide to the Stained Glass Windows, unpublished guide, 2006
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION
The Anglican church of St Andrew is listed at Grade II*, for the following principal reasons:
* The building is a parish church retaining its C14 west tower, nave, north aisle and chancel
* The medieval building is incorporated into a much larger, high quality church of 1877, designed by one of the most significant C19 architects of places of worship, William Butterfield
* The high quality of the exterior work and the extensive and high quality interior decorative scheme, which includes glass by Clayton and Bell
* Group value with the Grade II listed boundary railings (qv)
