Listed Building: CHURCH OF ST ANDREW, WITH BOUNDARY WALL (381893)

PORTLAND SY67NE AVALANCHE ROAD, Southwell 969-1/1/166 (East side) 21/09/78 Church of St Andrew, with boundary wall II Anglican parish church. 1879, by C.R. Crickmay, architect. Rock-faced coursed stone with ashlar dressings, bright red clay tile roof. Nave, with bell-cote to west gable, north porch, south baptistry, lower chancel. Simple Early English style with lancets, buttresses and coped gables throughout. West front has three stepped lancets under statue niche and double bellcote; north porch projects, with boiler house to its left, double plank doors under statue niche; stone stack. Nave north side has two pairs of cusped lancets; chancel triple lancet. East end has three stepped lancets to stepped moulded drip course carried across gable width. South front with 3 single lancets to chancel and 2:3:2 lancets to nave. Baptistry has single lancet to east and west, and triple lancet to south. Interior: unplastered 4-bay nave with arch-braced trusses and 2 purlins, simple wind bracing; principals brought down to stone corbels. Windows in deep embrasures to flat segmental heads, quarry tile floors to walkways. Double-chamfered segmental-pointed chancel arch, boarded ceiling to chancel. North side has lancets with colonnette screen, walls plastered, decorative tile floor. Round stone carved pulpit on short marble columns, font west end of nave, C19 stained glass in all windows except south side nave by chancel arch: centenary glass by Jon Callan of Southwell, 1981; window formerly blocked by pipe organ, removed 1974. Former baptistry, now vestry, with boarded ceiling, heavy marble columns to responds, parclose screen moved forward into nave. Subsidiary features: boundary wall in rock-faced masonry to weathered coping; square gate piers to moulded pyramidal cappings opposite north porch, and simple trimmed opening at head of flight of steps to south side. Wall varies in height, is retaining structure for most of its length. Built, at a cost of »1900, as a memorial to lives lost in the wreck of 'Avalanche' and 'Forest' in September 1877, and usually known as 'the Avalanche church'. A model of 'Avalanche' set in to glazed recess north side of nave, and artefacts removed from the wreck displayed similarly in porch. A well-maintained building in a prominent position, and an important reminder of the former treachery of the coastline to sailors in these waters. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Newman J: Dorset: London: 1972-1989: 344). Listing NGR: SY6868870180

Record last edited

Apr 17 2025 11:42AM