Church Of St John The Evangelist

Church of St John the Evangelist

A parish church built in 1877-78 by William Swinden Barber, architect of Halifax, at a cost of approximately £4,000. The building is constructed of local sandstone in regular courses with grey freestone dressings and a slate roof.

The church is planned with a nave, south aisle, south-west tower, chancel, and south vestry with organ chamber. It is designed in simple Gothic style.

The nave west front displays three pointed windows under linked hood moulds with head stops. On the north side are four two-light windows with plate-tracery cusped circles, and a single-light window at the west end. The south aisle has a double and three triple pointed lights.

The three-stage tower features angle buttresses, which are very shallow in the middle and upper stages and incorporate a north-west turret in the lower stage. The embattled parapet has corner pinnacles. The lower stage serves as a porch with a south doorway having continuous moulding and a small quatrefoil window above. In the west face are a pair of pointed lights under a relieving arch. The middle stage has round clock faces, added in 1905. The bell stage has two pointed openings in each face, with an impost band and louvres. The chancel window comprises three stepped cusped lights, with two pairs of cusped windows on the north side. The vestry has a pointed south doorway and cusped pointed windows.

Internally, the four-bay nave arcade has round piers and double-chamfered arches, with one bay closed by a modern partition. The doorway from the tower to the south aisle has a continuous chamfer. At the east end of the south aisle is an arch with continuous chamfer opening to the organ chamber. The nave roof has closely-spaced rafters. The chancel has an open wagon roof. In its south wall is a doorway to the vestry under a shouldered lintel and pointed blank tympanum. The walls are exposed stone, and original floors are concealed beneath carpets.

Most of the original furnishings have been removed. The octagonal font stands on a stem of quatrefoil section. The round stone pulpit has open arcading and fleurons. The wooden reredos, installed in 1891 at a cost of £197, is an ambitious high-relief carving of the Last Supper under gabled canopies, flanked by outer Gothic panels with painted texts of the Ten Commandments, Lord's Prayer, and Apostles' Creed—a slightly incongruous feature recalling low-church early 19th-century tradition. Several stained-glass windows date from the late 19th century, with one from around 1933.

The interior was significantly re-ordered around 2005 when the pews and choir stalls were removed and an altar was set up on the north side of the nave.