Church of St Andrew

Details

TL 97 NE BARNINGHAM CHURCH ROAD

1/11 Church of St. Andrew 14.7.55 GV 1

Parish church. C14 and later; restored 1877. Nave, chancel, west tower and south porch, mainly in rubble flint with freestone dressings. Chancel rendered externally, and an admixture of knapped flint and red brick in the tower walls. Slate roof to nave, tiles to chancel. High C15 porch with diagonal buttresses and parapet of black knapped flint; a 2-light window to east and west with cusped tracery; remains of a holy water stoup in south-east angle. C14 south doorway to nave with multiple continuous mouldings and hood- mould. 3 2-light windows in north and south walls of nave with Perpendicular tracery; buttresses with checkerwork bases in moulded stone and black knapped flint; an old wooden sundial on the face of the south-east buttress. C14 chancel : quarter-round mouldings to narrow pointed priest door; flowing tracery to 3-light east window; low-side window on south west with embattled transome and wooden shutter; blocked north door. Plain tower in 3 stages with stone string-courses: stone-faced diagonal buttresses on west; flint-faced stepped parapet; west door with multiple mouldings and a small single-light window in the stage above; a 2-light window with cusping and quatrefoil to each face of the top stage: all these features apparently early C14, although wills of 1439 and 1440 (see Pevsner, Buildings of Suffolk p.86) refer to the tower as new. A stair turret on the south face rises to the top of the second stage; a large clock has been fitted into the top window, and a single block of carved stone with a shield has been let into the flintwork of the lowest stage. The nave interior is filled with a very fine set of C15 benches with traceried panels against the ends, tracery and crestings along the backs, poppy-heads, and figures of animals and birds, monsters, and one kneeling figure, on the arms. Jacobean panelling to the rear part of the walls. C14 octagonal font on a low base with various traceried panels around the bowl. Half of the Jacobean altar rails, with turned balusters, are resited in front of the benches on the north side. Very late C17 panelled pulpit with Jacobean sounding-board. Roof in 8 bays, the 3 on the east longer than the rest: moulded purlins and principals; no, collars; arch-braces to principals, capitals alternating in height along the walls. Remains of medieval stained glass in the heads of all the nave windows, and the remains of old leaded panes of crown glass to the lights. The former medieval studded plank south door to the church has been reversed, refaced in C19, and is now the door of the vestry in the base of the tower. Large wooden parish chest in the south- east corner: the iron bands are stamped 'C.E.Catton,1873", but also with the older initials B.P. In the south wall, a cinquefoil-headed niche with piscina for a side altar. Above it, the stairs to the rood loft set into the south east window; the cut-off end of the candle-beam embedded in the wall. Fine screen with remains of original painted patterns and gesso-work on the buttresses: one-light ogee arches with panel-tracery and a cresting above. Jacobean doors. Chancel fittings mostly date from the 1877 restoration, and the stained glass is all of that date. Angle piscina with trefoil head; sedilia; Jacobean altar table; on north wall, a memorial brass with a standing figure to William Goche, sometime rector, d.1499. Roof in 4 bays: arched- braced trusses without collars, the braces meeting at a central pendant with carved boss. The diary of Thomas King, a Thelnetham carpenter, records 'Barningham Church screwed together by Geo Bloomfield June 1834"; this refers to the tie-irons across the nave.

Listing NGR: TL9678576892

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

284364

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Suffolk, (1974), 86

End of official list entry

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