Church of St Andrew

Details

815/0/10011
08-SEP-03

BREDENBURY
St Andrew's Church


II

Parish church. Consecrated 1877. T.H. Wyatt for the Barneby family. Coursed snecked rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings; banded clay tile roof, plain and fishscale, swept eaves; moulded apex stones to gables. Windows are mainly small, pointed-arched, most with trefoil-headed and Geometric tracery. Plan of W tower, nave, S porch, SE transept, chancel.
EXTERIOR: Tower, slightly tapering, has a pyramidal roof with weathervane and overhanging eaves; the belfry has paired louvred lights with sillband, single lights to tower chamber at W and N, partly obscured by clockface at W, two-light main W window with quatrefoil tracery with dedication plaque below, N and S lancets; battered plinth. Gilded clock faces at W and S. At SE, polygonal tower stair with separate pyramidal roof, lancets and plentiful ashlar quoins and quatrefoil band. S porch, timber-framed on a stone plinth, has a steep-pitched roof with moulded bargeboards and swept eaves, an open pointed arch supporting a truss; open arcading to sides; exposed rafters; benches and flag floor; main S entrance with hoodmould with foliage stops and double doors with massive hinges. S nave has two sets of paired lights with foliage enrichment to the spandrel between. S transept with steep-pitched roof has similar lights more widely spaced with roundel with trefoil above: in the W angle with the nave a porch entrance though an angled doorway with shouldered architrave, flat-roofed with high parapet; three pitches of roof merging above; in the E angle with the chancel are steps down to boiler room with chimney adjacent. Chancel has 3-light E window with Geometric tracery, stepped sillband continuing round returns; three lancets to N chancel wall. N nave has a rather short 3-light E window lighting pulpit area with roundel lights and Geometric tracery and two pairs of lancets similar to S. Stepped buttresses separate chancel from nave and nave from tower; chancel only very slightly lower than nave.
INTERIOR: 4 bay nave with scissor trusses and collars, decorative roundels in the apex, supported on tiered corbels at wallplate level. White plaster ceiling and rendered walls. 4 oil lamps converted to electricity hang from chains. 3 similar trusses to chancel, additionally enriched with St Andrew's cross. Tower ceiling is coffered; adjacent are the fittings for the 6 bells presented by W.H. Barneby. Floor is of encaustic tiles, more elaborate to E. Modest octagonal stone font with quatrefoils at W, reputedly from former church. S door (also SE door) has adjacent some C18 and early C19 marble monumental plaques to local families re-sited from old church. At NE nave is an elaborate pulpit of contrasting marbles on a stone base with architectural and figurative sculpture. Both chancel and tower arch are moulded and pointed and supported on corbelled responds. Low chancel screen comprising Geometric arcading in marble on a wider stone plinth decorated on S side with recessed quatrefoils; brass lectern adjacent. Organ fills the S transept behind the 2-bay arcade: instrument by W Sweetland of Bath 1880, (renovated 1992 by Nicholson and Co of Malvern). Steps up to sanctuary and altar behind which has full-width reredos comprising 3 heavily moulded trefoil-headed arches heavily crocketed with finials and angels in spandrels in contrasting marbles: 2 kneeling angel figures either side of a central cross; on N and S sides decorative stone panels incorporating roundels with profile or three-quarter relief busts of the 4 evangelists set within quatrefoil frames. Series of stained glass windows mostly dating from 1880s and following an ecclesiological order, the W window by Charles Gibbs depicts the Resurrection, the E the Crucifixion; the nave windows are episodes from the Life of Christ; the S chancel a series of Virtues by Mayer and Co. in honour of Queen Victoria's Jubilee 1887.
HISTORY: In 1875 the Parish of Bredenbury was united with that of Wacton and a decision taken to build a new church on a new site to replace the very small existing medieval church at Bredenbury and the ruined church at Wacton. Land was donated by William Henry Barneby, of nearby Bredenbury Court, whose family also commissioned many of the fine interior furnishings. Foundation stone laid 1876.
Architect T.H. Wyatt also responsible for Humber church and nearby Bredenbury Court. Some building materials from the original churches were apparently re-used in the new construction. W.H. Barneby also presented the bells in 1881 and the pulpit in 1882. The reredos was erected c.1880 in memory of Evelyn Mary Barneby (1873-1876). The church clock was installed in his memory in 1917. Stained glass in W window by Charles Gibbs, N chancel windows by Mayer and Co 1887 in honour of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, E and other windows given by WH Barneby, including S (Suffer the Little Children) in memory of Edmund Barneby (b and d 1869), likewise the organ of 1880.
SOURCES: Pevsner N, Herefordshire, 1963, p.82. Information from local leaflet.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

493374

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Herefordshire, (1963), 82

End of official list entry