ST ANDREW’S
CHURCH, YETMINSTER
ARCHITECTURAL
DESCRIPTION
The fifteenth century work – nave, aisles,
porch and tower – has greater pretensions, and is a good example of a uniform,
aesthetically ambitious scheme undertaken on a relatively small scale and with
limited means. The exterior, whose best face is to the south, is given grandeur
by the row of large battlements that partly conceals the roof, by the sturdy elegance
of the tower, and by the vigorous tracery patterns in the broad windows (recalling
those of Sherborne Abbey). Eleven of the twelve original
consecration crosses survive. The interior of the nave is appealingly spacious
and light, thanks to its very broad plan, which (with its aisles) is nearly square,
and to the tall wide arches that flank the main vessel. The lack of upper windows
makes this, like St. John’s, Yeovil, a ‘hall-church’, echoing the great halls
of castles and the open-plan ‘preaching churches’ of the Franciscans and Dominicans.
Large parts of the original oak roofs remain (including the central one, a graceful
semi-circular ‘barrel’ roof), as do some of the original benches.
From
the artistic point of view the most precious feature of the church is the amount
of original colour that survives on walls, roofs and even benches. The survival
of such a comprehensive unified scheme is rare. Though the traces of it are often
faint, much decayed, or destroyed, what is left hints at an interior once ablaze
with bright red, green, blue, white, gold and black. These colours were gathered
in vigorous chevron or spiral patterns, or employed to pick out the foliate and
heraldic decorations of the roofs, or to illuminate the sacred monogram IHS, the
first three letters in Greek of the name of Jesus. Among the original carved capitals
is one illustrating the favourite medieval joke of the geese (the hitherto gullible
people) hanging the fox (the rapacious and mendacious friar).
A more genteel but equally entertaining detail is the little horse on a boss in
the roof, the ‘rebus’, or punning emblem, of the local magnate, Sir John Horsey
of nearby Clifton Maubank, who may well have paid for the nave and tower.
The intervening centuries have seen the adornment
of the church with attractive funerary monuments, notably the great early sixteenth
century Horsey brass and the pleasantly naďve Minterne
wall monument of more than a century later. Successive restorations have succeeded
for the most part in consolidating rather than replacing the medieval fabric.
The most recent of these was completed in 2000; it attended to traditional re-leading
of the roofs, modern electric wiring and lighting and necessary repairs to the
external stonework.
The small but very beautiful organ, (Hill,
1880), was brought from Stone in Buckinghamshire in 1987. One
manual with 6 stops and one pedal stop.
There is a ring of 6 bells: “two new, two
recast and two historic. Well matched, steady-going and majestic”. There is also
a Service bell. The oldest bell is about 1400, the youngest 1995.
For details of the Bells and other furnishings
see the NADFAS Church Record see Yetminster
publications
A team of local people has beautified the
church with hassocks, many of which have been specially designed for it. More
recent still – and still going on – is the creation of a large ‘Millennium Hanging’
of twenty-six canvaswork panels that show the life and
history of the village. These were designed to be used at special festivals and
some of them are already on permanent display in the Trim Room, St. Andrew’s Hall.
To find out more about this project, or to
arrange viewing of it, please email: mfmoule@ukonline.co.uk or contact the Churchwardens
(see WHO’S WHO AT
ST ANDREW’S YETMINSTER)