St Andrew, Aycliffe

St Andrew’s is a Grade I parish church at Aycliffe Village, County Durham, in the Diocese of Durham, with extensive Anglo-Saxon fabric revealed in the restoration of 1881–82.

Overview

Historic England and the Heritage Gateway record an Early English church that retains the outer walls of an Anglo-Saxon nave and original west quoins, visible inside the later aisles, with a square-sectioned Saxon string course above the nave arcades. Transitional nave and chancel work of about 1190 is followed by a south aisle and refaced upper tower stages of about 1220; the belfry is fifteenth-century. Ewan Christian’s restoration of 1881–82 added a new north aisle, organ chamber and vestry and rebuilt the chancel south wall. The south porch of 1835 conceals a c.1220 inner doorway under a two-order pointed arch.

The north arcade is semicircular on alternating octagonal and round piers; the south arcade is pointed. Fittings include two late tenth-century cross shafts, an early fourteenth-century cross-legged knight effigy, a plain early Norman font, and mid-seventeenth-century balustraded pews, pulpit, altar table and reredos. Great Aycliffe Town Council notes that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records synods at Aclea in 782 and 789. After plaster was stripped in 1881–82, the Rev. J. F. Hodgson wrote that ‘the silence of a thousand years was broken’.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1322806
• Great Aycliffe Town Council: St Andrew’s Church