Listed Building: CHURCH OF ST ANDREW (467328)

WEYMOUTH SY78SW CHURCH ROAD, Preston 873-1/3/463 (South side) 12/12/53 Church of St Andrew GV II* Anglican parish church. C14 nave, tower arch and N doorway, C15 chancel and nave refenestration, C16 tower rebuild, and S aisle (RCHME); 1855 restoration under TH Wyatt. MATERIALS: coursed Portland rubble with ashlar dressings, lead roof to nave and aisle, slate to chancel and N porch. PLAN: wide nave without clerestorey, W tower and N porch, narrower chancel but with steep roof, S aisle. EXTERIOR: square tower in 2 stages, with moulded string and parapet course, to bold crenellations and 4 gargoyles, short set-back buttresses with 2 offsets to the W, and deep plinth. The W door is in a high pointed arch with C14 roll-mould surround, and under 2-light C14 cusped window. The top stage has a 2-light louvred cusped window to each face; N side also has a small rectangular light at mid string level, and a clock face. A flight of stairs to the underground flat-roofed boiler house adjoins the W end of the aisle, with a free-standing asbestos-cement flue. There are crenellations, as to the tower, on 3 sides, and 3-light segmental-headed C15 windows in a wide casement moulding with labels to stops; to E and W they are cusped, but the two S windows are uncusped. The central S doorway, now blocked, has mouldings as at W doorway. Diagonal buttress to the left, and 3 square buttresses. Two square downpipes have hopper-heads dated 1855. The chancel has high coped gables with terminal stone crosses, and a stone eaves course each side. The 3-light S window is under a square label course, and the E window is 3-light with casement mould. The chancel is without plinth. The vestry, N of the chancel, C20, with flat roof, and a 3-light window to the E, 5-light to the N, and a sunk panel with door and single light to the W. The N side of the nave has a stone eaves course as to the Chancel, and a 3-light cusped window each side of the porch; that to the left of the porch has small carved figures as label stops, and the other has square stops. The porch, with coped gable, has the stone eaves course, a C14 outer doorway on responds with foliage capitals, down one step to the stone floor with a stone bench each side. Inner door is C19 plank with strap hinges, under plain chamfered arch; to the right are remains of a mediaeval stoup, and in the left wall is a small image niche. INTERIOR: the wide 4-bay nave has plastered walls, a heavy C14 double-chamfered tower arch, chancel arch including a wide double wave to keel edge, and arcade of 4-centred arches on piers of 4 shafts and 4 hollows. The roof is C19, in low pitch, the principals carried on corbels. The stone floor includes several large memorial slabs at the E end. The S aisle has a C19 lean-to roof and stone floor. In both nave and aisle the window to the W has a slender colonnette to the rear arch, and in the E window mouldings are carried down to the sills. There is an opening for the former rood to the right of the chancel arch, and the upper part of the stone stair remains in the aisle. Upper part of the S doorway opening remains as a niche above the lower blocking. The chancel, on 2+2 steps, has mid C19 painted panelled barrel ceiling and coloured encaustic tile floor. A broad squint from the S aisle, and door to the vestry. STAINED GLASS: chancel E window was replaced after destruction during World War II; the S window contains a central panel to Constance (Constance Grace Pinwill Conway), d.1921, aged 13. The glass, formerly in Weymouth College Chapel incorporates musical notes. The design by Catherine Ewbank. Adjacent to pulpit is pictorial window to Charles Gaskell Falkner, d.1932, but inserted in 1949, by Stammers of York. FITTINGS: pews are plain pine; octagonal pulpit, communion rail, and reredos of c1930 by Revd CF Metcalf. Square Purbeck marble font bowl of c1200 is set on a retooled base. MONUMENTS: include white marble tablet on black marble ground, on the N chancel wall, to Octavius Piers, 32 years pastor, d.1848, by Haggett; to N of altar, a deep square recess in C19 projecting stone frame contains an early C17 kneeling figure with some remains of colour, above a stone plaque with naive lettering, to an un-named vicar who died in 1614, aged 32; in the aisle a limestone monument to Charles Gill, d.1859, is in the form of an upright vesica piscis. (RCHME: Dorset, South-East: London: 1970-: 361; The Buildings of England: Newman J & Pevsner N: Dorset: London: 1972-: 349). Listing NGR: SY7058182968

Record last edited

May 22 2020 10:53AM