St Andrew's Church, Sedbergh

St Andrew’s Church stands on Main Street in Sedbergh, a small town in Cumbria. Built mainly in the late 15th century, it keeps earlier stones in its walls. The Lancaster architects Paley and Austin restored it in the 1880s, lowering the floor and adding new fittings. In 1985 the organ was overhauled and the bells were recast. The churchyard holds a yew where George Fox once spoke and the unmarked grave of the poet Charles Woodmason. The church is Grade I listed and shows fine craftsmanship. Its rubble walls are dressed with sandstone and topped by green slate roofs. The west tower rises in three stages to an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles. Both aisles have embattled parapets and four-light windows, while the clerestory has five three-light windows on each side. Inside, the north arcade has eight bays and the south arcade six, with round-headed arches and cylindrical piers. Visitors find a spacious nave with a two-manual organ built in 1895. Wall memorials line the aisles and a 19th-century pulpit has an 18th-century sounding board above it. Eight bells cast in 1897 hang in the tower. The south porch shelters a niche and a sundial above the priest’s door. The chancel end holds three three-light windows, and the north aisle ends in a flying buttress.