English
Saint Andrew's Church
Bandra [Bandora/Bandorá], Mumbai Metropolitan Area (Bombay), India
Religious Architecture
According to Father Francisco de Sousa, the Church of Saint Andrew of Bandra was founded by the Jesuits in 1576. It was probably a modest structure, or made using temporary materials. In 1595 construction began on a building using definitely more lasting materials. The type (single nave with tile roof and vaulted chancel) and existing wall structure are essentially those put up that year; there is no reason to believe in the story circulated by the British gazette, published for the first time in 1882 and repeated by Gerson da Cunha in 1900, that the church was turned to face the other way during construction work in 1864, with the chancel transferred from the east to where it currently stands, on the west side, against the sea. Major renovations were carried out on Saint Andrew’s in 1864. Specifically dating from that time are the design of the current façade, perhaps inspired by the composition type present in the Nirmal Calvary and at Saint Thomas’s of Sandor – a very elaborate retable composition, impossible in that form in Indo- Portuguese architecture from the 16th to 18th centuries, which resembles more a hotchpotch exhibition of architectural decorative motifs and mouldings: Tuscan columns with plinths, cornices, voluted corbels and rosettes arranged arbitrarily with architraves with corbels over arches, urn pinnacles over architraves and a gothic pediment over ‘Roman’ window, etc. The tradition of Bandra’s Catholics as collected by Brás Fernandes makes no mention of this façade work, but admits that in 1864 the church was endowed with two towers, replacing previous ones, probably simple belfries. The base of the north tower now contains the high choir staircase, and the south tower the baptistery. One of the bells bears the inscription “Santo Andre de Bandora 1793” and the other “Santo Andre de Bandora 1869. Recast 1900”. The downward opening of the side windows likewise probably dates from that time. In 1965 the whole façade was shifted about 22 metres eastward to increase the size of the nave, which until then was only 30 metres long. The concrete addition is very visible, although it has the same width and practically the same height as the old nave. The parishioners decided to maintain “the original Portuguese façade”, the one there now – a characteristic attitude in a community led by people from the upper classes, proud of their past. Enlarging the nave meant sacrificing the original high choir over the entrance, sustained by columns or pillars; the staircase to the pulpit, which was disfigured to insert stairs, was also shifted inside. The side altars and two tablets sculpted in high quality wood date from the early 18th century. The original high altar, now crumbling, was replaced in 1890 by the current Gothic altar dressed in marble in 1906. In 1890 a very long wooden portico was also made to protect the church’s entrance, which was removed in 1965. The cemetery in front of the church contains inscriptions in Portuguese up to the 1860s. The grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes at the entrance to the ground is from 1921 and was built by Augustus Pereira of Saint Andrew’s Road. South of the church a large granite cross was set up with the sculpted instruments of the Passion, brought from the demolished Jesuit college of Santana.