Church Of St John The Evangelist

The Church of St John the Evangelist is a parish church primarily dating to the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, with significant restoration work undertaken in 1878 by James Fowler of Louth. The church is constructed mainly of chalk rubble with squared blocks and ashlar, with a lower section of the chancel built of red brick in English bond and chalk ashlar above. Limestone and ironstone dressings are present, and the tower parapet is of limestone ashlar. The roof is covered in Westmorland slate.

The church comprises a west tower, a 3-bay nave with a north aisle and north porch, and a 2-bay chancel that adjoins a vestry on its north side. Quoins are a feature of the exterior. The west tower has two stages; the first stage features an ogee-headed west single-light window and a narrow square-headed south window. The upper stage has twin belfry openings with ogee-headed lights and polygonal shafts, surmounted by a moulded string course and a coped embattled parapet with crocketed pinnacles. The south side of the nave has the outlines of three blocked arcade arches, containing a partially reset blocked 14th-century pointed wave-moulded doorway, alongside 2-light and 3-light pointed windows with 19th-century restored reticulated tracery and original headstops. The north aisle has chamfered plinth and sill string-courses, with two 19th-century twin lancets and a reset 13th-century lancet to the west. The chancel’s south side features two 13th-century lancets, one restored. Stepped lancets with a hood mould are present on the east side, while the vestry has a reset 15th-century 2-light window with Perpendicular tracery and a restored hood-mould. The porch has a chamfered plinth, a 19th-century pointed outer arch with mouldings dying into chamfered jambs, and a narrower, similar inner arch.

Inside the church, a triple-chamfered tower arch dies into imposts, with a deeply-splayed tower lancet. The north arcade consists of pointed double-chamfered arches resting on filleted quatrefoil piers and responds, featuring thinner filleted shafts between the foils, plain moulded capitals, square abaci, and bases. A 19th-century pointed double-chamfered chancel arch has an inner order on corbels. The south chancel wall contains mutilated double sedilia, truncated by the east wall, displaying trefoiled ogee-headed openings on octagonal shafts. A good 14th-century stained-glass panel depicting the Crucifixion and other fragments is within one south window. A good octagonal 14th to 15th-century font with a moulded column and base is also present.