Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is an Anglican church dating from 1150-1170, with alterations in the 14th and 16th centuries. Further changes were made in 1838-39 by RD Chantrell, who also restored the roof in 1843, followed by a restoration in 1879. The building is constructed of coursed squared gritstone with stone slate roofs.

The original plan comprised a small Norman two-cell church, consisting of a nave and a lower-roofed chancel, with a bellcote over the west end renewed in 1839. A small, unmoulded priest’s doorway is found in the chancel’s south wall. A particularly fine gabled portal, dating from 1150-55, also stands in the chancel’s south wall. This doorway has a round arch with an unbroken roll moulding and four orders; the innermost order features beaked heads, while the second and fourth have chevron ornament and two roll mouldings respectively. The beakheads and chevrons of the two inner orders continue down the jambs below the carved capitals, and the two outer orders incorporate round shafts with carved capitals and bases. Above the doorway is a weathered relief sculpture depicting Christ in Majesty, with symbols from Revelations Chapter 4, including a lamb with a flag, a cross, the sun and the moon. A 13th-century bronze closing ring, depicting a monster swallowing a man, is attached to the board door with iron studs. Narrow, round-headed Norman windows are present, with those on the east and west ends reconstructed. A flat-headed Decorated window is set into the chancel’s south side, and two flat-arched Perpendicular windows are positioned on the nave’s south side. A corbel-frieze with faces and beasts runs along the west gable, with a similar, two-tiered frieze at the apex. The north side features corner and central pilasters, four Norman windows with roll moulding below, and a carved mask and figure to the corbel table. The vestry is attached by a short passage to the northwest side, featuring a hollow-chamfered arched doorway and a trefoil window on its east side. The vestry’s east window is a three-light design with reset stained glass, and the gable above has a molded blocking course. A tall external stack with a banded top is located on the vestry's west side.

Inside, the church is accessed by two steps. A fine chancel arch, dating from 1160-70, consists of two orders with chevron and zigzag decoration, a beak-head, and a chain of rectangles, with carved capitals depicting the Baptism of Christ and Crucifixion, alongside a centaur with a bow and a horseman with a lance. The octagonal font, possibly original, was found in the graveyard in 1858 and has a carved oak canopy by Eric Gill (1921), depicting the Crucifixion, six of the Sacraments, and a Christian arriving in heaven. A carved oak pulpit, with panels in a linenfold style, bears a plaque commemorating its presentation by EW Beckett of Kirkstall Grange in memory of his wife, who died in 1891. Stained glass by Henry Gyles of York, to his friend Thomas Kirk, is found in the southwest chancel (c.1706) and the vestry's former east window (1681).