The church of ST. ANDREW consists of a chancel 27 ft. 10½ in. by 16 ft. 9 in., a nave 51 ft. 6 in. by 18 ft. 11 in., and a south porch. The greater part of the church belongs to the first half of the 12th century, and, except for the introduction of a few windows, it appears to have remained unaltered until the 15th century, when the chancel was partly rebuilt and lengthened eastward, and the nave was probably lengthened westward at the same time, or perhaps late in the 14th century. The church was reroofed about the beginning of the 16th century. The bell-cot was restored in the 19th century. The whole church is plastered externally and internally.
The two-centred east window of the chancel is of mid-15th-century date, and has three cinquefoiled lights with tracery. In the north wall is a window of similar date of two cinquefoiled lights with a quatrefoil ever. An identical window in the south wall is now blocked up. At the west of both north and south walls are early 14th-century windows of two trefoiled lights with a quatrefoil over, probably set in part of the older chancel wall. Between the two windows on the north is a small priest's door with a pointed head, and on the south is a square-headed mid-15th-century window with tracery. The flat pointed rear arch and jambs are continuously moulded, and stopped with small octagonal moulded bases. The 12th-century chancel arch has a single square order on the east, but on the west two moulded orders, the outer enriched with zigzag. It is supported on circular shafts with moulded and spurred bases, cushion capitals (one of which with the abacus over is restored), and moulded abaci now somewhat mutilated but originally mitred round the imposts. The section of the abaci is of the same character as that of the string-course beneath the windows in the eastern parts of Romsey Abbey Church.
The nave is lit on the north by a 14th-century window. Partly under it is a tomb recess of the same date with a moulded two-centred head. Opposite in the south wall is a window identical in date and design, under which is a square recess with a piscina drain. A little to the west of the piscina is another tomb recess, also of 14th-century date, with a slightly ogee-moulded head and a scroll-moulded label. At the south-west is a two-light window of uncertain date. The south door in the middle of the wall is of 12th-century date, with a round head of one order, and an edge chamfer which is probably an addition. There was probably a north door opposite to it, which cannot now be seen. The south porch is of late date and of brick, rough cast. The west window is of the 15 th century, with a two-centred head. The west door is of late 14th-century date and continuously moulded with a double ogee of early section and has an external label.
The font has a Purbeck marble bowl, much retooled, but perhaps of the 12th century, on a modern stem and base.
The roofs are both old, but that of the nave is quite plain and undatable. That of the chancel is probably of late 15th-century date, and has a moulded wall plate and two curiously cambered tie-beams. The bell-cot is over the west end of the nave. It is quite plain, has recently been reshingled and has a pyramidal tiled roof. It is supported upon trusses carried by six strutted wall posts within the nave. The communion table is of early 17th-century date.
On the south wall of the chancel are a monument of Renaissance detail, with the date 1584 and the initials I. M. on shields held by putti, and kneeling figures of a man in civilian dress, his wife, one son and two daughters, the figure of the eldest son being broken away. No trace of the original colouring remains.
In the floor of the chancel is a brass plate to William Sandys, 1628, with his arms, a ragged cross quartered with a cheveron between three birds' claws razed and bendy vair and (? gules). The inscription tells that he preferred to be buried here ad fontem on his own land to sharing his ancestors' tomb ad vitem at the Vyne. In the south wall of the nave is inserted a stone carved with two shields on a draped canopy. A modern inscription below records that the church of St. Michael at Bremen was built 1693 by Daniel Meinertzhagen and Bruno Heilman, senators of the free city of Bremen, and that at its rebuilding in 1898 the carved stone was removed and sent by the senate of Bremen to the English descendants of Daniel Meinertzhagen. The dexter shield bears a bend with a molet thereon, and above it is the crest, a pair of wings with a molet on each. The other shield bears six fruit trees and over all a bend with three bunches of grapes thereon and has a like tree as crest.
The east window is completely filled with 15th-century white and gold glass, generally said to have been brought from the Holy Ghost Chapel near Basingstoke, and made out with new glass. The style, however, is entirely unlike that of the glass now in Basingstoke Church, which is known to have been in the chapel. In the centre light is the Crucifixion with the figures of our Lady and St. John on a red background. In the side lights are figures of St. Peter and St. Andrew on blue backgrounds, with their names below in modern capitals. In the two smaller lights over is the coronation of our Lady between St. John and St. Katharine with seraphs standing on wheels in the outer lights, and in the head, with figures of angels swinging censers in the small side lights. The figures are excellently drawn and the colouring extremely fine. The 15th-century two-light window on the south of the chancel also contains some contemporary white and gold fragments, probably St. Michael, St. Katharine and a bishop, and a number of quarries, each ornamented with a single floral form. In the two windows at the west of the chancel are some fragments of late 14th-century glass, that to the north containing a nearly complete and splendidly drawn head of Christ. There has been a like head on the south, but the red borders charged with gold lis in the heads of the main lights were not designed for their present position. In the north-east window are more fragments of this and other borders.
The bell-cot contains five bells. The treble bears the churchwardens' names and the date 1675. The second was cast by William Tozier in 1718. The third is marked F.F.R.V. 1663. The fourth is dated 1678, and the fifth was recast in 1891.
The plate consists of a silver chalice probably of 1586, the gift of John Howorth, rector, and a silver paten of 1707, the gift of the Rev. Oliver D'Oyley St. John in 1830.
The registers are contained in four books. The first contains baptisms and burials from 1701 to 1761 and marriages from 1701 to 1723, with a few later entries, in part copied from an earlier paper register. The second contains marriages after a gap, from 1754 to 1788, and the third marriages from 1789 to 1812. The fourth contains baptisms and burials from 1788 to 1812.
From: 'Parishes: Mottisfont', A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 4 (1911), pp. 503-510. URL: (
visit link) Date accessed: 06 September 2009.