Church Of St John The Evangelist

The Church of St John the Evangelist is a church constructed between 1827 and 1829, designed by Rickman and Hutchinson. It is built of sandstone ashlar with a slate roof and is designated as a building of group value. The church is in the Early English style and comprises a west tower with a spire, a nave with north and south aisles, a north porch, and an apsidal chancel with an attached hexagonal south vestry.

The three-stage west tower features prominent angle buttresses. It has a two-centred arched west doorway with three orders of moulding, a hoodmould that extends as a string course around the entire tower, and a lancet window with three orders of hollow moulding on each side of the second stage. A band of quatrefoils sits above the windows, and tall triple-lancet windows are present at the belfry stage, with the outer sections blind and the central section louvred. A corbel table runs along the cornice, and corner pinnacles with flying buttresses rise to the octagonal spire, which has gableted lucarnes at its level and smaller lucarnes halfway up.

The nave and aisles, with six bays each, have buttresses to the aisles and lesenes to the nave, and plain parapets with corbel tables in each bay. Moulded lancet windows with hoodmoulds are present throughout, and buttresses at the east end of the nave culminate in tall octagonal pinnacles. The north aisle features a prominent gabled porch with emphatic angle buttresses, corner pinnacles, a shafted outer doorway with three orders of moulding, a hoodmould with figured stops, and a corbelled niche above. The porch has a vaulted ceiling and an inner door with three orders of deeply-undercut moulding. The chancel, buttressed and with three bays, includes shafted lancet windows under hoodmoulds with figured stops, and a plain parapet with slender pinnacles rising from the buttresses. Attached to the south side is a hexagonal vestry, mirroring the church's style.

The interior creates a lofty and luminous impression due to tall arcades with columns and engaged shafts, two-centred arches with three orders of moulding, and a groin-vaulted ceiling with carved bosses—the groins springing from clustered wall-shafts. The aisles and chancel are also groin-vaulted. A heavily moulded chancel arch is supported by shafted piers. An organ loft is located at the west end on a five-bay arcade. The apse features rich blind arcading in the Geometric style. A gabled, canopied recess within the north wall of the chancel frames a wall monument to John Blayds of Leeds and Oulton, “the Founder of this Church,” who died in 1827. An inscribed footnote identifies him as formerly Johnn Calverley. The walls are plastered and the whole interior has been painted white. Further historical information is available in "Oulton: Village Church Estate, St. John's Press, 1979".