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St Andrew, Ferrybridge, Yorkshire, West Riding

Location
(53°42′46″N, 1°16′21″W)
Ferrybridge
SE 481 243
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Yorkshire, West Riding
now West Yorkshire
formerly St Andrew
medieval St Andrew
now St Andrew
  • Rita Wood
20 Jun 2000, 18 Mar 2015

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Description

A church in Magnesian limestone in a red brick suburban setting. It has nave, chancel, south chapel, south aisle, tower and north porch.

In 1951-53 the church was moved to this site from Ferry Fryston, about three-quarters of a mile north of the present position, (approx. Grid Ref: SE 478 251). The OS map of 1893 suggests remnants of medieval strip fields in the area, which is now occupied by the Ferrybridge power station. The burial ground at the old site remains to the east of the power station. The church at Ferry Fryston had been restored by Ewan Christian about 1878, and faculty papers at the Borthwick Institute show the plan and sections of the medieval building (Fac. 1878/4). A painting of the church from the SW dated 1905 is in the vestry. Ryder (1993, 152) has a photograph of the N face of the church on the old site.

After a long history of flooding and, latterly, erosion, it was decided to move the church to Ferrybridge, the modern centre of population. Mottistone & Milner-White (1956), and the mark 0.78m up the R jamb of the doorway, show the flood level of 1866. The rebuilding is said to have used approximately 60 per cent of the original walling and all the worked stone. One bay was added to the aisle at the W end. The S doorway became the present N doorway, and the N aisle was changed to the S side. The vice in the tower was moved from S to N. There are no faculty papers for the removal at the Borthwick Institute.

Romanesque sculpture survives on the N doorway, on the impost of the tower arch and on the font. Accessible parts of the sculpture have been retooled, for example parts of the font and the tower arch.

History

Until 1953, St Andrew's church was at Ferry Fryston.

DB says ‘in Queldale and Fristone Gamel had 7 carucates. Now Gerbodo has it of Ilbert [de Lacy]’. A church and priest are mentioned. At Weldale, 4 carucates, and at Fristone, 3. Ferrybridge is also mentioned, but is a less valuable place (VCH II, 247-8).

Padgett (1904) thinks that the church mentioned in DB was likely to have been somewhere around Wheldale farm because Queldale is mentioned first. The settlement has now disappeared, but survived in Padgett’s time as 14 acres of glebe. ‘Fristone’ seems to have been Water or Ferry Fryston.

In 1332 Fryston church was a chapel of ease, and had been so for some time.

Sir Stephen Glynne visited in January 1849. He says 'the western part of the nave has some First Pointed features, but all the rest is of late and almost debased Third Pointed character.' (Butler 2007, 178-9).

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Windows

Interior Features

Arches

Tower/Transept arches

Furnishings

Fonts

Bibliography

Borthwick Institute, Faculty Papers, Fac.1878/4

L. A. S. Butler, ed., The Yorkshire Church Notes of Sir Stephen Glynne (1825-1874). Y. A. Soc. Record series 159, Woodbridge 2007.

D. P. S. Mottistone & E. Milner-White, The Moving and Re-erection of Churches, Westminster 1956.

L. Padgett, Castleford and District, London 1904.

N. Pevsner, Yorkshire: West Riding. The Buildings of England, Harmondsworth, 1959. 2nd. ed. revised E. Radcliffe. 1967.

P. Ryder, Medieval Churches of West Yorkshire, Wakefield, 1993.