Church of St. John the Baptist

The Church of St. John the Baptist is a church with a core dating to the 12th century, significantly altered in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, with an aisle rebuilt and an apse added in 1891. It is constructed of rubble and coursed dressed sandstone with sheet lead and copper roofs. The church comprises a west tower, a lean-to south vestry, a three-bay aisled nave with a south porch, and a two-bay chancel with a polygonal apse.

The west tower has a chamfered plinth, offset angle buttresses, and a two-light west window with a hoodmould. Rectangular slit windows are set below two-light, square-headed belfry openings with hoodmoulds. A corbelled band with gargoyles supports an ashlar parapet, terminating in a recessed octagonal spire. The lean-to vestry on the south side has three-light windows. The rebuilt south aisle has a gabled porch with a cross. Windows have ogee lights within square-headed openings with hoodmoulds; a single-light window is on the left of the porch, and three- and two-light windows are on the right, divided by a buttress. Roll-moulded parapet copings are present. The two two-light clerestory windows mirror those of the aisle, and a renewed embattled parapet tops the aisle. The north aisle and clerestorey are generally similar to the south side.

The chancel is lower and contains C13 rubble walling heightened in ashlar. Diagonal east buttresses flank a quoined priest’s door with a pointed arch and hoodmould. To the left of the door is a tall, square-headed three-light window, and to the right, a band beneath two quoined lancets, one with a billeted hood. Three ashlar courses run beneath an embattled parapet. A lancet window is located on the north wall. The polygonal apse features a band beneath cusped two-light windows on five faces, linked by a hoodmould, and small embattlements to the parapet.

Inside, a pointed, double-chamfered tower arch connects to similar arches in the south arcade and to the chancel. The transitional north arcade consists of three bays with cylindrical piers, plainly moulded capitals, and round arches. A trefoil-headed piscina recess is found in the chancel. The nave roof is of C15-C16 construction with cambered tie beams and moulded framing. A medieval, octagonal font remains, along with fragments of a C10-C11 cross in the south aisle. Several monuments are located in the chancel, notably to members of the Savile family, including one on the north wall to Samuel (d1685), featuring a skull beneath a cartouche with cherub heads and a gadrooned vase finial, and another on the south wall dated 1695, with a bowed panel beneath a broken segmental pediment. Late C17 oak panelling, likely from Mexborough Old Hall, has been fitted in the C19 apse.