Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

A parish church built between 1876 and 1878, designed by Smith & Brodrick. The building is constructed of brick with moulded brick and ashlar dressings, and has slate roofs. It is designed in the Early English style.

The church comprises a chancel, nave with clerestorey, aisles, west porches, and vestries. It displays a plinth, sill band, angle buttresses, moulded eaves, and gable crosses. The chancel has a 4-light lancet window with geometrical tracery and hoodmould to the east. The south side has a single lancet to the east, flanked to the left by a door, then two single lancets. The north side has a single lancet to the east.

The nave is of 4 bays, with recessed panels containing two round cinquefoil windows each, divided by shallow buttresses. The west end has a pointed-arched recess with hoodmould and ringed shafts, containing a graduated untraceried triple lancet. Above this is a triple breather. At the west end stands an octagonal wooden bell turret with a conical spire topped with a weather vane. A shouldered gable stack stands to the north-east.

The aisles have three pairs of single lancets with linked hoodmoulds to the east, and to the west a gabled porch with moulded pointed doorway and hoodmould. Above the porch is a small opening. To the west again and at the west end is a single lancet.

The north-east vestry has a doorway to the north flanked to the left by three single lancets and to the west by two similar lancets with linked hoodmoulds and sill band. The east end has a traceried triple lancet with hoodmould.

The interior features arch-braced roofs with collars and stone corbels to the nave and chancel. The walls are of painted brick with a triple rebated chancel arch with hoodmould and shaft responds. The sanctuary wall is of panelled brick with chamfered coping. The chancel east end has traceried wall panels and a canopied wooden reredos, with a mid-20th-century stained-glass window above. The north side has a Gothic organ case, and to the east a chamfered pointed door and a stained-glass window of 1924. The south side has a similar door flanked to the east by a 20th-century stained-glass window and to the west by two windows.

The nave has 4-bay arcades with round ashlar piers, square foliate capitals, and double chamfered brick arches with hoodmoulds. Clerestorey windows have segmental pointed recesses on a sill band. The west end has a similar taller recess with impost bands.

The aisles have arch-braced lean-to roofs and doorways to the west with traceried glazed internal porches. The south aisle has a chamfered doorway with hoodmould and wrought-iron grille to the east. The south side has stained-glass windows of the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, the south-west one by Kayle & Co. of 1895. The west end has a stained-glass window of 1887. The north aisle has an arch to the east containing organ pipes. The north side has a resited 20th-century stained-glass window to the west and a west end window of 1895.

Fittings include a traceried round ashlar pulpit, brass eagle lectern, traceried stalls, and matchboard benches, all of the 19th century. There is also a corniced marble war memorial panel of circa 1920.