St Andrew's Church is a
redundant Anglican church in the village of
Buckland,
Hertfordshire, England. It is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...
as a designated Grade II*
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
,
and is under the care of the
Churches Conservation Trust
The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...
.
The church stands at the highest point in the village to the east of
Ermine Street
Ermine Street is a major Roman road in England that ran from London ('' Londinium'') to Lincoln (''Lindum Colonia'') and York (''Eboracum''). The Old English name was ''Earninga Strǣt'' (1012), named after a tribe called the ''Earningas' ...
, now the
A10 road, between
Royston and
Buntingford.
[
]
History
The nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
and chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse.
Ov ...
were built in about 1348.[ The tower was added in about 1400, and the south ]aisle
An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, par ...
and south porch followed in the late 15th century. Restorations took place in 1848 and 1875. In about 1880 a vestry
A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...
and organ chamber were added, and the exteriors of the nave and aisle were restored in 1893.[
]
Architecture
Exterior
The church is constructed in flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...
with stone dressings. The roofs are in red tiles. Its plan consists of a narrow three- bay nave with a broad south aisle and a south porch, a two-bay chancel with a vestry and organ chamber to the north, and a large west tower. The tower is set on a moulded plinth
A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In ...
. It is in three stages separated by string courses, with diagonal buttress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...
es, and a battlement
A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interv ...
ed parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...
. In the bottom stage is a west doorway with a pointed arch, above which is a two-light window. The bell openings in the top stage have two lights. On the summit of the tower is a pyramidal spire. In the north wall of the nave are three two-light 14th-century windows and a 15th-century blocked doorway. The east window in the chancel has three lights dating from the 19th century in 15th-century style. In the south wall of the chancel are two two-light 14th-century windows, with a doorway from the same period between them. The south aisle has three-light 15th-century windows, two in the south wall, and one each in each of the east and west walls. The south porch has diagonal buttresses, and two-light windows on each side. Over the entrance arch is a niche
Niche may refer to:
Science
*Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development
*Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species
*Niche differentiation, in ecology, the ...
with a cinquefoil
''Potentilla'' is a genus containing over 300Guillén, A., et al. (2005)Reproductive biology of the Iberian species of ''Potentilla'' L. (Rosaceae).''Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid'' 1(62) 9–21. species of annual, biennial and perenn ...
arch.[
]
Interior
Both the nave and the chancel have 19th-century waggon roof
A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...
s. Between the nave and south aisle is a three-bay arcade
Arcade most often refers to:
* Arcade game, a coin-operated game machine
** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade game's hardware
** Arcade system board, a standardized printed circuit board
* Amusement arcade, a place with arcade games
* ...
. The aisle has an almost flat timber roof dating from the 15th century, and contains bosses with foliate carving. In the aisle is a piscina
A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman Ca ...
with a trefoil
A trefoil () is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings, used in architecture and Christian symbolism, among other areas. The term is also applied to other symbols with a threefold shape. A similar shape with four ring ...
head. The chancel is floored with encaustic tile
Encaustic tiles are ceramic tiles in which the pattern or figure on the surface is not a product of the glaze but of different colors of clay. They are usually of two colours but a tile may be composed of as many as six. The pattern appears inla ...
s. Its north arch is decorated with carvings of angel musicians. The font is made from Barnack
Barnack is a village and civil parish, now in the Peterborough unitary authority of the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England and the historic county of Northamptonshire. Barnack is in the north-west of the unitary authority, south-east ...
stone set on a clunch
Clunch is a traditional building material of chalky limestone rock used mainly in eastern England and Normandy. Clunch distinguishes itself from archetypal forms of limestone by being softer in character when cut, such as resembling chalk in lo ...
base. The wooden pulpit dates from the 19th century. Also from that century are four boards on the north wall of the nave with the Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
, the Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...
, and the Creed. There are three groups of brasses
A monumental brass is a type of engraved sepulchral memorial, which in the 13th century began to partially take the place of three-dimensional monuments and effigies carved in stone or wood. Made of hard latten or sheet brass, let into the pavem ...
on the wall behind the altar with dates in the second half of the 15th century. In the south wall of the aisle is a white alabaster
Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that include ...
monument dated 1634. The tower contains two monuments dated in the 18th century. In the arcade is a marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...
tablet in Neoclassical style dated 1861, and in the southwest of the chancel is another marble tablet, this one by Chantrey, dated 1819. There is some medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
stained glass in two of the windows in the nave.[ The single- manual organ was built in 1870 by Henry Jones and Son.]
See also
The Churches Conservation Trust: St Andrew's Church, Buckland
References
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buckland, St Andrew's Church
Grade II* listed churches in Hertfordshire
Church of England church buildings in Hertfordshire
English Gothic architecture in Hertfordshire
Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust