Church of St John the Baptist 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 the Baptist
- WRENN ID
- final-sill-gorse
- 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 the Baptist, Castle Hill Road
- OS grid reference
- SD 829 122
- Coordinates
- 53.60683, -2.25964
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St John the Baptist is a church built in 1845 by George Shaw of Uppermill. It features rock-faced ashlar with ashlar dressings and slate roofs with stone-coped gables, designed in an Early English style. The building includes buttresses and diagonal buttresses with set-offs, a chancel and nave with a north vestry and a small adjacent north transept. The east end has a triple lancet window with cusped arches, while the sides of the chancel and nave have similar single lancets. The vestry has a 3-light window, and there is a single lancet in the transept with a chimney turret positioned between them. A gabled south porch and a bellcote are located on the west gable, which also features a double lancet window below.
Inside, both the nave and chancel have hammer beam roofs supported by stone corbels, with carved angels holding shields at the ends of the hammer beams. The roofs have arched braces to collars and two tiers of purlins with crossed wind braces in between. The chancel includes a panelled wooden reredos and dado panelling, along with choir stalls. There is a carved pulpit and a stone font supported by clustered columns, as well as pews in the nave. A recent partition has been carefully added at the west end to create a services area with a meeting room above. This small church is an early example of ecclesiologically correct Gothic architecture, with its simple exterior and richer interior being well-suited to its rural location.
Local climate
Church of St John the Baptist sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,120 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 49 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 91% 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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