Church Of St John

The Church of St John is a Free Church of England building located on Kirklees Street in Tottington. It was constructed in 1853, with alterations made in 1867 and a chancel added in 1905. The church is built of graduated coursed gritstone with ashlar details and features a slate roof. It has a simple six-bay design with coped gables. Notable additions from 1867 include a bellcote and possibly a south window, while a north chancel with an attached boiler house or vestry was added around 1907.

The south front of the church has three steps leading up to a pedimented porch supported by four moulded columns. There are paired entrances with flat lintels, although the right entrance is blocked. Above the entrances is a large window with three stepped round-arched lights, along with a small blocked vent and a datestone from 1867 at the gable's apex, which is topped by a round-arched bellcote with moulded coping and scrolled brackets. The left and right sides of the building feature plain surrounds to tall side windows, with decorated tracery on the four-light north window.

Inside, the church has five unusual roof trusses made of cast-iron bars and tension rods that mimic the appearance of hammer-beams set on corbels between the windows. At the south end, two cast-iron columns support a panelled gallery with an entrance screen below. The seating consists of plain moulded bench-pews with doors. The windows are adorned with leaded glass in a honey-comb pattern within round-arched surrounds, and there are stained glass windows, including a notable one in the north chancel from 1921 by Gustave Hiller of Liverpool. An organ was installed in 1921.

Historically, in 1849, Samuel Perry became the vicar of the Anglican church in Tottington. Some members of the congregation, including churchwarden and local employer William Bowers, opposed the influence of the Catholic Revival, which led to the celebration of festivals and the vicar wearing a surplice. This resistance to the Oxford Movement contributed to the establishment of the Free Church of England in 1844, following the construction of Bridgeton Chapel in Totnes. The plain style of the Church of St John reflects the non-conformist chapels and local industrial buildings of the mid-19th century.