Church of St John is a Grade II listed building in the Rochdale local planning authority area, England. First listed on 9 May 2003. Church.
Church of St John
- WRENN ID
- gaunt-grate-jackdaw
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Rochdale
- Constituency
- Heywood and Middleton North MP: Mrs Elsie Blundell (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 9 May 2003
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St John, Church Avenue
- OS grid reference
- SD 887 088
- Coordinates
- 53.57609, -2.17178
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St John is a Grade II listed church built in 1907 by RB Preston. It is constructed from rock-faced snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings and features slate roofs with stone-coped gables and finials. The church is designed in the Perpendicular style and includes buttresses and diagonal buttresses with set-offs. Its layout comprises a chancel, a south vestry, chancel transepts, a nave with aisles, a west baptistery projection, and a south-west tower.
The east end showcases a five-light window, with two-light windows flanking the chancel on the south side above the vestry, which has a door to the south and a three-light window to the east. The transepts feature three-light windows with three-light dormers above in the chancel roof. The aisles have three-light windows, while the nave clerestory has flat-arched three-light windows. The west end includes a four-light window above the canted baptistery projection, which has small single- and two-light windows. The south-west tower is three stages high with a battlemented top, featuring a door to the south, small windows, clock faces on the stage above, and two-light louvred windows in the bell chamber.
Inside, the chancel boasts a finely carved alabaster reredos, carved wooden choir stalls, communion rails, and other fittings, along with a mosaic floor. There is a carved stone pulpit and a low screen, as well as a carved wooden screen in the south transept and an organ in the north transept. A carved eagle lectern is also present. The chancel roof features arched braces rising from stone corbels to collars. The church contains a fine collection of stained glass in the east and west ends and aisles. The west end has churchwardens' pews, stalls in the baptistery, and a plain font with an elaborately carved wooden font cover, along with Commandments boards above. The nave roof consists of wall posts rising from stone shafts to moulded wall plates and tie-beam trusses with king and queen posts and curved braces. The warm sandstone interior, combined with the rich colours of the roofs and the high-quality fittings in wood, stone, and glass, creates a harmonious atmosphere.
Local climate
Church of St John sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,110 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 88% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 81% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 50 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 92% of listed buildings. Of these, 28 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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