Monument record FRK 019 - Church of St Andrew

St Andrew's church is within the diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, archdeaconry of Sudbury, deanery of Mildenhall. Status : rectory and vicarage (S1).
The structure is : chancel, N vestry, nave, N aisle, S porch, W tower. The chancel is Early English, but from a late stage in the development of the form. All the windows in the chancel have internal jamb-shafts with fine arch-mouldings. The E window is circa 1300 and has intersecting mullions. The SE window is of 2 lights with a plain circle in the head. There is a plain double trefoiled piscina with two archless but cusped openings and two drains; it is late C13. The sill of the S window is graduated for sedilia. The rood screen is Perpendicular as is the vestry to the N of the chancel. In the vestry is a window with 'Y' tracery. The nave is Decorated., The font is a stone octagon. The pulpit is of Caen stone and a plain octagon. The nave windows all date from the transitional period between Decorated and Perpendicular. The nave and chancel roofs are both Perpendicular canted waggon roofs with bosses. The arcade has 5 arches; the easternmost is late Perpendicular and opens into a chapel of the same date, the others are transitional from Decorated to Perpendicular. The arches have one chamfer and one recessed chamfer, the supporting pillars are quatrefoil. Originally the tower had been a square and embattled one in flint. In the early 1880s it fell down and had to be rebuilt. The S door is plain and late C13. A C15 alabaster carving in the wall of the N aisle was discovered in 1776 fixed face to the wall; it illustrates the curious legend of St Eligius, a bishop and patron saint of blacksmiths. Many of the old bench ends remain at the W end of the nave. Many have carved poppyheads which mostly take the form of little kneeling figures (S2).
A major restoration of the church took place between 1867 and 1869. This was undertaken by G E Street. In the chancel he inserted two small 2-light Perpendicular windows which break into the roof in the manner of dormers. He added a good tiled floor and the painted scheme for the roof. The stepped E window is a good 3-light, filled with glass designed jointly by Street and John Hardman who made the glass in circa 1869. A vestry was added to the NE of the church by Street. His restoration does have the virtue of retaining much of the original fabric and some of the fittings. The church remained thatched until 1870. In this year the nave and chancel were restored and their roofs, which are of the same height, were covered with tiles (S2).