By Nigel Woodcock, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
Early 13th century. The early church probably had Clunch ashlar walls with a Barnack plinth. The buttresses were Clunch with Barnack plinth and set offs. Windows were probably of Clunch with Barnack sills. The south door was and is of Clunch, suggesting that the C13 church had a south porch, probably with the same stone types as the nave. A bell turret, of unknown stone, presumably dates from the same time. Based on the number of openings with surviving Barnack, St Andrew ranks 99th out of the 126 medieval churches in south Cambridgeshire (Woodcock 2025), so relatively poor. However, if all the nave/chancel windows had Barnack sills, the church would rank 27th, and relatively wealthy.
Late 14th century. A Perpendicular Gothic low-side window of Barnack was inserted in the south side of the chancel. The circumstances of this costly addition would be interesting to know.
1846. The church was closed due to its poor state of repair, especially the north wall and the bell turret.
1854-56. The church was restored by the Cambridge Architectural Society, with architects R.R. Rowe and Rev. John Gibson (Jesus College). The north wall was rebuilt using Ketton Stone blocks and debris from the previous wall. The Vestry/Organ Chamber was probably built at the same time. The lower part of the east, south and west walls was refaced with thin Ketton Stone. The bell turret was replaced by the present bell openings in the west gable.
A puzzling feature of the rebuilding and refacing is the poor quality of the coursing of stones, particularly on the west and north walls. The courses are not level; they vary in thickness and they contain many snecked joints. Vertical joints often continue across several courses, especially in the refacing on the lower west wall. It is almost as though the masonry was laid to demonstrate bad technique. Perhaps at least all this imperfection was to make the building more “medieval”? R.R. Rowe certainly had a tendency to over-restore churches, evidenced by his rebuilding of Stuntney Holy Cross and partial rebuilding of Haddenham Holy Trinity (Bradley and Pevsner 2014, pp. 559, 656). Haddenham features poorly coursed rubble in the south chancel and reused and snecked ashlar in the south transept, like examples in St Andrew’s.
1923-25. There was a further restoration by H.C. Hughes but details are unclear (Bradley and Pevsner 2014, p. 287).
1929. The south porch was rebuilt by Theodore Fyfe (Director, Cambridge School of Architecture) using ashlared Ketton, Weldon and reused Barnack. The poor quality of the masonry on parts of the west wall of the porch suggests a possible later and inexpert repair.
1955. The choir vestry was built of new Ketton, Weldon and ragstone rubble. As with the 1854-56 restoration, the imperfect coursing of the ragstone rubble could be deliberate rather than merely inexpert. The ashlar on the west wall is heavily snecked, similar to but better executed than Rowe’s Victorian masonry.