St Andrew’s Church

A Brief History

The Parish Church of Chale, Isle of Wight, was dedicated to St. Andrew on 1st December 1114 and so in 2014 celebrated  the 900 years a Christian church has stood on this site close to Chale Bay Farm. 

Originally it was a Catholic church but on the Reformation it became part of the Church of England.  It started probably as just a small single roomed structure, but over the centuries it has been enlarged to the building we see today.  In the 15th century the tower was added, and in Victorian times it went through major alterations and extensions. 

The Church has six stained glass windows by the famous Charles E. Kempe,  five given in memory of James Arnold Hearn of New York, USA, as was the Clock, two bells, the organ, and land around the external churchyard.

The pulpit has a carving of the Last Supper by Millicent Johnson, daughter of Sir Henry Allen Johnson, Bart, who lived nearby and who was buried by the front porch in1860. 

Other memorials include those to members of the Worsley family.  Many victims of shipwrecks in Chale Bay are buried near the north churchyard wall, including the famous Clarendon, wrecked in 1836.

The Churchyard surrounds the Church and includes the Chale Parish War Memorial, and  the graves of people of various denominations who lived in Chale.