Church of St John Evangelist is a Grade II listed building in the County Durham local planning authority area, England. First listed on 26 November 1987. Parish church.
Church of St John Evangelist
- WRENN ID
- worn-niche-sparrow
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- County Durham
- Constituency
- Bishop Auckland MP: Dr Sam Rushworth (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 26 November 1987
- Type
- Parish church
- Address
- Church of St John Evangelist, Lynesack and Softley
- OS grid reference
- NZ 090 261
- Coordinates
- 54.63025, -1.86077
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St John Evangelist is a parish church dated 1847, located in Lynesack and Softley. It is constructed from coursed squared sandstone, featuring an ashlar plinth, dressings, and quoins, topped with a Welsh slate roof and stone gable copings. The church has a six-bay nave with a south porch and a shallow west belfry, along with a one-bay chancel that includes a north vestry. Designed in the Early English style, the church has three steps leading up to a pointed-arched boarded door, which is set under a dripmould with shield block stops. The porch has a steeply-gabled roof with coping on moulded kneelers and a roll-moulded finial.
The church features similar dripmoulds over lancet windows with alternate-block jambs and sloping sills, with three at the east end and two at the west, flanking a four-stage belfry. This belfry includes a lancet in the first stage, a blocked trefoil in the second, and four louvred lancets in the octagonal top stage, which is topped by a steep conical stone spirelet. Clasping buttresses at the corners have steep coping, and the steeply-pitched roof has a damaged angelus finial and a small stone cross at the east.
Inside, the church has painted plaster walls with dado moulding. The roof features collared trusses with trefoil bracing on stone corbels, while the chancel roof is plain with single purlins. The chancel arch is deeply chamfered and rests on half-octagonal stone corbels. The pew ends have blank quatrefoil panels, and the pulpit and choir pews are in a more elaborate version of the same style. An early 20th-century traceried wood reredos and fluted chancel panelling are present, along with a tiled chancel floor and a brass communion rail supported by leaf-decorated cast iron balusters. A hammered bronze First World War memorial panel is located on the north wall of the nave. The church also features an octagonal stone pulpit with a brass lectern, and a late 19th-century organ by Nelson, which has stencilled decoration on its pipes.
Local climate
Church of St John Evangelist receives an average of 940 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 71% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 60% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 54 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 94% of listed buildings. Of these, 33 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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