Church Of St John The Baptist

This collegiate church, which briefly served as a cathedral and later as co-cathedral with Coventry, has functioned as a parish church since the Dissolution. The building displays a complex architectural history spanning from the late 11th century through the late 20th century, with significant periods of construction in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, and further work in the 14th century.

The church suffered major structural failures: around 1470 a supposed central tower collapsed causing damage, further collapses of the north-west tower occurred in 1572 and 1574, and much of the transepts and presbytery were abandoned by the mid-16th century. The nave and crossing underwent restoration by RC Hussey between 1859 and 1866. In 1881 the north-west tower collapsed, destroying the north porch; John Douglas rebuilt the porch in 1882 and added a north-east belfry tower in 1886. The church is built of sandstone.

Plan and Layout

The present church and adjoining ruins reveal an original ambitious plan: a west front designed for twin towers (the southern one never built), with a bay between the towers now destroyed; a six-bay nave truncated to four bays; north and south aisles similarly reduced to four bays; a crossing with north and south transepts each cut back to one bay; and a five-bay aisled chancel with apse between north-east and south-east chapels, now shortened to one bay with the south aisle serving as Lady chapel and the north aisle replaced by a vestry within the belfry tower. A chamber south of the south aisle probably functioned as the chapter house.

Exterior

The ruined lower stage of the north-west tower, constructed of badly eroded red sandstone, features a 14th-century west window opening with ogee hoodmould and an east archway that formerly led to the north nave aisle. Medieval walls link the tower to the north porch and a 19th-century narthex occupying the site of the nave's fifth bay.

The north porch displays a large pointed archway whose jambs carry seven colonnettes supporting seven receding arch mouldings, fitted with wrought-iron gates and oak boarded doors on ornate hinges. Above the archway, a niche contains a recovered statue of a bishop flanked by arched panels, topped by moulded coping and a cross finial. The inner archway, dating from the 12th century, has renewed colonnettes but original voussoirs with eroded mouldings. The narthex has a flat roof with simple detailing, while the porch has a steep-pitched slate roof; a rainwater head on the west side is dated 1881.

RC Hussey completely refaced the north aisle and clerestory between 1859 and 1866, installing broad colonnetted lancets in the clerestory alternating with blank panels, and adding heavy raked buttresses. The north transept retains pre-19th-century stepped buttresses and medieval coursed stonework below the sill level of the north window, which contains an inserted vestry door. The restored three-light mullioned and transomed Tudor-arched window has cusped heads to the upper lights, with a coped gable and corner rainwater head dated 1866.

Douglas's three-stage north-east belfry tower features flat corner buttresses to the first stage, with a vice (spiral staircase) at the north-east corner served by stair loops and small lancets. The vice has an oak boarded door on wrought-iron hinges set in an arched opening. The massive oak bell-frame expresses itself as a three-panel bell opening on each face. A short steeple with two-stage roof completes the tower, each stage having belled eaves, with the upper stage oversailing the lower.

The east end displays a stilted tripartite window from 1863 by TM Penson: a broad stilted round-arched light flanked by lower, narrow lights. Large stepped buttresses (the northern one pre-19th-century) support the wall, with an eaves-level stringcourse and coped gable.

East of the present church, the south side wall of the former chancel remains visible at ground level. Badly eroded red sandstone arches of the east bay and former north-east and south-east chapels rise nearly to full height; the Lady chapel arch is Romanesque, the others probably 13th century. The retro-transepts at the far east, which contained three chapels, have floors substantially lower than the chancel.

The supposed chapter house and former upper chamber immediately south-east of the crossing displays diminishing buttresses and unglazed lancets. The surviving lower walls of the upper storey indicate former window openings. A vice stands at the corner where the chapter house meets the south transept. The south transept shows medieval stonework below the window sill, with refaced work above, and a Tudor-arched three-light transomed window with cusped heads to upper lights.

The 19th century rebuilt the south aisle wall of the nave, fitting it with broad lancets and double oak-boarded doors in an archway with stiff-leaf colonnettes. The refaced clerestory has broad lancets alternating with arched panels, all with colonnettes. Pinnacles mark the corners wherever RC Hussey rebuilt or refaced the structure. The west end of the nave, above the narthex, has 19th-century triple lancets.

Interior

The four-bay nave features simple probably late 11th-century arcades with plain circular columns on cruciform bases, varied scalloped capitals, and twice-rebated voussoirs. The triforium, dating from around 1190, has four arches per bay on piers with five attached colonnettes and intermediate piers with three colonnettes. The early 13th-century clerestory repeats the triforium rhythm but with more developed mouldings.

The arcade columns lean outward and westward in a remarkable deliberate arrangement. The angle of lean increases from the crossing to the third columns, then begins to decrease. This lean carries up through the triforium and clerestory. The present floor-level heights of successive column pairs suggest that before RC Hussey's restoration, the nave floor sloped upward towards the crossing.

The diagonal lean of the arcade columns was evidently intentional. The plinths on which they stand have vertical sides and level tops beneath the recessed padstones. The padstones are tapered from the inner east corners to the outer west corners, providing appropriately sloping beds for the columns. The roofs to nave and aisles were renewed between 1859 and 1866.

The south aisle side wall is rebuilt. Colonnettes in the reveals of the north aisle windows appear angled outward relative to the wall face, accentuating the upward broadening. The east column of the south arcade has suffered some subsidence. Damaged medieval painting survives on the east column of the north arcade.

The crossing, approximately contemporary with the nave, has oblong piers with inner corners rebated to receive attached shafts: three half-round shafts on the north and south faces, two on the east and west faces. The simply-moulded arches to the nave and chancel are wider and less than semicircular, while those to the transepts are slightly horseshoe-shaped. Roll-moulded aisle arches to the nave and chancel have sides that broaden in a slight curve as they rise.

The drastically shortened transepts have 16th-century end walls. The now one-bay chancel was damaged supposedly by the fall of the central tower around 1470. The north side of the chancel has a roll-moulded aisle arch blocked in 1886 by the vestry wall, and a blocked Romanesque triforium arch on a very short respond with scalloped capital; the stonework above is rebuilt. The south side has a roll-moulded aisle arch with a fragment of triforium respond above, and rebuilt upper stonework.

A doorway from around 1300 leads to the former supposed chapter house, which, like the ruined bays of the chancel and Lady chapel, has a floor level substantially lower than the crossing, suggesting a chancel crypt may have been intended. The chapter house has an octagonal central pillar carrying a quadripartite vault of two by two bays on wedge-section ribs.

Stained Glass

The west window contains glass by Edward Frampton from 1887 to 1890, funded by the first Duke of Westminster, depicting ecclesiastic historic events in Chester. The east window from 1863 by Clayton and Bell, funded by Meadows Frost, depicts Biblical scenes to commemorate the marriage of Edward Prince of Wales. Memorial windows in the nave aisles include one in the north-east from 1901 by Shrigley and Scott, funded by Chester master builders, commemorating the architect TM Lockwood and depicting Hiram, builder of the Temple at Jerusalem.

Fittings

The church contains a small red sandstone font, probably 17th century, rediscovered in the 19th century; a 19th-century pulpit; a reredos from 1876 by Douglas, made by Morris and Company, with a painting of the Last Supper by Heaton, Butler and Bayne; a Lady chapel reredos in timber of Baroque style from 1692, now two-panel but formerly wider; an organ used at Queen Victoria's wedding then brought to Chester, rebuilt in 1901 in a case by TM Lockwood from 1895; 17th-century gates to the Lady chapel, altered; an aluminium figure of the Virgin from 1969 by Michael Murray; and a mace board listing mayors of Chester from 1529 to 1848.

Monuments

The church contains numerous monuments. In the south aisle these include Diana Warburton (1693) by Edward Pearce with sculpted skeleton; Cecil Warburton (1729) with bust in relief; Anne Truslove (1833); Major J Bedward Royle RWE (1917); Matthew Anderton (Baroque plaque, 1693); Thomas Gamul (1677); Humphrey Phillips and others (1662 and 1639); Jane Brother (1666); Reverend William Richards (1837); John Bostock (1716); a brass to Edmund Borlase (1682); Mary Townshend and son George Crufts (1751); Robert Bulkeley (1679); Thomas Hassall (17th century); John Powell, sexton (1881); a brass to Alice Wright (1906); John Jones (1816), Grace (1828) and Edward (1834); Katherine Wynne (sculpted plaque, 1650); and Edward Harbert (1691).

On the west wall of the nave are memorials to Pryce Holland Williams (1892); Thomas Hughes, Sheriff of Chester (1890); a brass war memorial for 1939 to 1945 listing 13 names; George Baxter (1890); Charlotte Morris (1850); H Trowbridge Moor (1857); Thomas Tolver (1829); and painted alabaster armorial shields from the tomb of Alexander and Alice Looes (around 1600).

The north aisle contains effigies on the floor of Agnes de Ridlegh (1347), a 14th-century knight, and a 14th-century priest, plus reputedly Irish Norse 11th-century cross-heads. Wall monuments include Hannah Aldersey (1718) and daughter Elizabeth Davies (1717); Giles (1720) and Katherine Peacock (1721); Robert Barker, Physician to Infirmary (1808); Arthur Forbes of County Meath (1788); Mary Drury (1895); Benjamin Perryn and wife (1761 and 1781); Emily Marsden (1913); Edith Howard Haswell and others (1916); Sidney Lee (1785); Mary Ellen Fleetwood (1905); Charles Falconer (1702); William Falconer and wife (1764); Meadows Frost (1883); Charles W Seller (1889); and Margaret Thomason (1807).

In the Lady chapel are monuments to Cornelius Hignett and others (1785 and 1735); Susannah Jane Scott, wife of Reverend Samuel Cooper Scott (1909); two presently unidentified hatchments; and armorial paintings by the Randle Holme family.

Historical Significance

St John the Baptist represents the finest example of 11th to 12th-century church architecture in Cheshire. The building holds special interest for the upward broadening and horizontal curves observable in the nave stonework. WH Goodyear demonstrated in 1914 that these features were intentional rather than accidental. The church was remeasured by OJP Bott, F Harrison and SG Jardine in 1990, confirming Goodyear's findings.