Yeadon: St Andrew

Ground plan:

Nave and chancel, south aisle with double transept, south west porch, vestries and organ chamber.

Dimensions:

The nave and chancel together measure approximately 31m / 100ft x 8m / 25ft.

Footprint of Church buildings: 426 m²

The church was built in 1890-1 to designs by Thomas and Francis Healey; prolific architects in this area. There do not seem to have been any later additions to the structure. A church hall was built in 1968 to the north west of the church.

St Andrew’s is an ambitious design by the Healey brothers using a mix of Arts and Crafts with Perpendicular styles to good effect. The site is approached from the south west with a wide open path leading to the main entrance, a south west porch. The site slopes down to the north which may have determined the single aisle to the south. The south elevation is clearly the show side and has a number of features whereas the north elevation is necessarily sheer.

The nave is of four and a half bays with a clerestorey level of three windows, each containing triplets of short lights with only a faint arch. The chancel roof is distinct but only fractionally lower than the nave giving a long emphasis to the east west axis. Both the nave and chancel roofs have decorative cross finials. 

The south aisle has the most detail of all elevations and comprises, from west to east, the bell turret, porch, aisle, double transept and then vestries. The bell turret is octagonal and a rather unusual feature of the building design. It is slender with wooden tracery louvres about roof height and finished with a ogee cupola.

The gabled porch is relatively wide with diagonal buttresses and three steps to the door which has a pointed arch and simple hood mould. Over the door there is a small rectangular opening with two cusped lights. The west wall has two further separate cusped lights.

The south aisle leans onto the nave and reaches to the base of the clerestorey windows. The four windows in the aisle are irregular although all set in rectangular openings. From the west, beginning hard against the porch, there are two sets of paired cusped lights close together. Further apart follows a set of three cusped lights then a final pair, next to the transept with ogee tracery.

The double gabled transept projects from the aisle and each has a large pointed window with four low cusped lights and panel tracery above. Adjoining the eastern transept is the pyramidal roof of the vestry, fitting against the junction of the chancel, with a chimney centrally placed. The vestry has a doorway and a band of windows under a rectangular head in the south elevation. There are two squat windows in the south chancel wall, with a string course underneath. These are just visible behind the vestry and each have two cusped lights under a pointed arch.

The chancel gable is shouldered with short diagonal buttresses of two weatherings on either side. The east window is most impressive and has seven equal lights with panel tracery above.

The north elevation of the chancel has three windows as seen on the south side with the string course continuous to the nave. The north elevation of the nave has three seemingly randomly placed buttresses, each of two weatherings; the one between the nave and chancel larger in scale than the others. From east to west there is one small arched window with two cusped lights which breaks the stringcourse and then three evenly spaced windows each with three cusped lights and ogee shaped tracery under rectangular heads. 

The west elevation is tall due to the drop in land to the north and has two equal sized windows, each of three lights under pointed arches, with ogee tracery overhead.