Church Of St John

The Church of St John is a church with a history stretching back to possibly before the Norman Conquest. The nave’s masonry suggests a pre-Conquest origin, while the arcades date to the 13th century. The chancel was built around 1300, with the aisles, clerestory, and tower added in the 14th or 15th centuries. The church is constructed of deeply-coursed, squared stone with rubble in the chancel, and has a lead roof.

The church comprises a west tower, a six-bay nave with four-bay north and south aisles, a south porch, a two-bay chancel, and single-bay north and south chapels, together with a north-east 19th-century vestry. The tall, three-stage west tower has diagonal buttresses. It features a large west door with two orders of mouldings decorated with stars and masks, a 3-light traceried window above, and a transomed and traceried bell chamber. The tower is topped with gargoyles, castellated parapets, and crocketed pinnacles. The buttressed aisles have three 3-light windows to the south and two 2-light windows to the north. The south porch has a 20th-century roof, and the entire church is edged with castellated parapets. There are five 3-light square-headed clerestory windows. The south chancel chapel is gabled with a 3-light window with Perpendicular tracery. The chancel features a pointed door with a 2-light window above and a 5-light east window (restored) with intersecting tracery. A similar north chancel chapel exists on the opposite side.

Inside, the church has six-bay arcades built on alternate round and octagonal piers. The nave boasts a good roof with arched-braced framing to figure-head corbels, and elaborate bosses dating from around 1375. A font consists of an octagonal bowl on a square pedestal. The chancel holds several monuments, including a 1708 marble tablet with a scrolled support, scrolled open pediment and bust flanked by an ox and oak tree (Bosvile crest). Another from 1714 features a draped marble tablet, a gadrooned canopy, a flaming urn, and putti, also referencing the Bosvile crest. A mid-18th century tablet commemorating the West and Fenton families of Underbrook Hall displays a coat of arms. Other notable tablets include one from 1855 commemorating William Fenton who was “barberously murdered by robbers at Algerciras in Spain” at the age of 35.