Parish Church Of St John The Baptist

SD 53 SW BROUGHTON CHURCH LANE

7/14 Parish Church of St. John the Baptist 11.11.1966 GV II*

Parish church. West tower dated 1533, nave rebuilt 1822, chancel and attached offices 1906 by Austin and Paley. Sandstone (tower of coursed blocks, nave of ashlar, chancel of rock-faced stone), with slate roofs. Three-stage embattled tower with diagonal buttresses (dying in the height, with offsets) and full-height south-west stair turret, has a moulded arched west door and above this a 3-light Perpendicular window with tracery, a 3-light belfry louvre in each side; loop-lights to the stair turret, and a parapet string course dated 1533 on the south side, with small gargoyles near the corners. Nave in Early English style, divided into 5 bays by shallow buttresses, has one large lancet in each bay, with deeply splayed reveals, and hoodmoulds and sillbands run out to the buttresses; 2nd and 4th bays on north side have similarly treated doors beneath raised sills of shortened windows. Full-height chancel and gabled organ chamber on south side by Austin and Paley, in Perpendicular style characteristic of these architects, with square-headed traceried windows, stepped string-courses and battlements, tall 3-light east window with stepped transom; band below string course in gable of organ chamber has re-set C16 carved stones with shields and initials, said to be those of the Singleton, Barton, Langton, and Redmayne families. Interior: Perpendicular tower arch, and above it the gable-line of a much smaller former nave; flat ceiling; tub font (removed in early C19 and used as flower vase, but restored here in 1887, on new pedestal) said to be Saxon. Probably 3rd church on site since C12. (References: Pevsner; VCH Lancs; and F. Eden Wilson and Roger D. Houghton A Short History of The Parish Church of St. John the Baptist, Broughton-in-Amounderness, 1977).

Listing NGR: SD5289934373