Church Of St John The Evangelist

The Church of St John the Evangelist is a church built between 1882 and 1883 by Medland Taylor. It is constructed from coursed sandstone and features a blue slate roof with patterned bands of green slates. The church includes a nave with full-height aisles, a south porch, a transept, a polygonal baptistery at the west end, and a chancel with a basement and various side offices. It is situated on a slope that rises to the west and is designed in a simplified Gothic style, complete with buttresses and stepped bands on two levels.

The east end of the church has two unequal gables facing the road. The larger gable belongs to the chancel and features a large five-light traceried window along with four basement lights. The smaller gable, set back on the north side, has a three-light window with a cusped vesica in the head. On the south side, the two-bay chancel has stepped lean-to cloisters at a lower level, which include one doorway and five lancets. Above these are two-light windows with hoodmoulds. The transept boasts a large five-light window with a hoodmould and two lancets at the lower level. The aisle features a large gabled porch (originally intended for a tower) in the first bay, two windows in the second bay, and one in the third bay, all of which have two simplified lights with a small round light above. The north aisle consists of four regular bays with similar windows. The west end is highlighted by a rose window in the gable and a lean-to extension that encompasses the polygonal baptistery, which has tall coupled lancets on the two exposed sides.

Inside, the church features a four-bay arcade of columns with moulded shaft-rings, moulded caps, and two-centred arches, along with a similar two-bay arcade at the west end. The roof is scissor-braced with wind-braced purlins and alternate trusses that have arch-bracing supported by hammerbeams. The chancel roof is similar, with a truss carried on short chamfered pilasters whose bases rest on moulded circular caps atop stove-pipe-shaped columns that die into the wall below. The aisle roofs include kingposts and longitudinal bracing. This church is a dramatic and unorthodox example of the architect's work.