St Andrew's Church, Cranford

St Andrew’s is a redundant Anglican church standing in the park of Cranford Hall, southwest of the house in Northamptonshire. It is listed at Grade II* on the National Heritage List for England and cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust. The church began in the late 12th century, when the nave arcade was built. A tower was added in the next century and the building largely rebuilt then. Later centuries brought a north chapel, clerestory, porch, new windows, a south chapel and a north transept for the Robinson family of Cranford Hall. The church shows work from the 12th to the 19th centuries in its limestone and ironstone walls, lead roofs and buttressed tower. The two-stage tower has a steep west doorway, lancets and clock face, topped by a castellated parapet. Inside, a Norman arcade of three round-headed arches stands on cylindrical piers. The north chapel holds a medieval piscina and the east window contains old glass fragments. A 19th-century pulpit re-uses 16th-century Flemish panels, and the octagonal font is plain. Visitors find the nave with its clerestory, north aisle and south porch, plus the north transept added for the Robinsons. The chancel has north and south chapels, each with three-light Perpendicular windows. The south chapel doorway is dated 1674 and the tower contains four historic bells cast between 1624 and 1718. The two-manual organ was built in 1883, and wall memorials recall the Fossebrok and Robinson families.