Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

This is a parish church of early 14th-century date with 15th-century additions, restored in 1844 by Henry Duesbury. It is built in ashlar sandstone with sandstone dressings and slate roofs with lapped stone copings, moulded kneelers and ridge crosses to the nave gables.

The church comprises a nave with a south aisle, a lower chancel, and a south-western tower positioned between the aisle and nave. The nave has a western gable wall with stepped diagonal buttresses on either side and two 19th-century adjoining central pointed windows, each with two lights and quatrefoil over trefoil headed lights, with continuous hoodmoulds above and a sill band below. Above in the gable is a small blocked trefoil-headed lancet with a hoodmould.

The north elevation features a blocked pointed doorcase now covered by a stone crypt, and a small pointed window just below the eaves to the west. Two stepped buttresses flank a Y-tracery window with a hoodmould between them to the east. Beyond this to the east is a large 19th-century three-light pointed window with panel-type tracery. A stepped buttress marks the east end of the nave, with two similar lower ones at the chancel. A 14th-century pointed two-light window with quatrefoil over trefoil headed lights stands to the west. The east window is Perpendicular with segment-headed cusped lights and a hoodmould over with carved label stops, flanked by corner buttresses.

The south chancel elevation has a similar 14th-century window to that on the north chancel elevation to the east, and a moulded pointed 14th-century doorcase to the west beyond a stepped buttress. Two adjoining chamfered lancets lie further west.

The south wall of the aisle has a cusped Y-tracery east window with a hoodmould and carved label stops, and two 14th-century two-light windows similar to those on the north chancel elevation. A buttress stands between them, with diagonal buttresses at either corner of the aisle.

At the west end of the aisle stands a three-stage 19th-century tower. The west face has a chamfered four-centred arched doorcase under a continuous hoodmould. Attached to the south is a projecting staircase turret with a similar doorcase to the south and small slit windows above. Above this level, trefoil-headed lancets appear on all sides with a continuous sill band, and a clockface sits over the southern lancet. In the third stage, each side has two chamfered adjoining louvred lancet bell openings with continuous hoodmoulds and flanking pilasters. A moulded eaves cornice crowns the tower, above which rises a scooped pyramidal stone spire with lucarnes to each side.

The interior contains an early 14th-century two-bay arcade with double-chamfered arches and polygonal piers with moulded capitals and bases. A 19th-century pointed chancel arch with attached columns and moulded capitals divides the spaces. The chancel and nave roofs are 19th-century, except for a 16th-century tiebeam with a carved central boss in the nave and part of the original tiebeam in the chancel, now incorporated into the newer roof and inscribed with the date 1595.

The chancel contains a 19th-century stained glass east window dating to around 1888, a carved oak reredos of that period, a deeply moulded pointed 14th-century tomb niche with a hoodmould on the north wall, and a small chamfered piscina to the east wall. The nave retains 1844 box pews on the north side and later 19th-century pews to the south. A mid-20th-century timber screen at the west end of the nave creates a separate vestry.

A 14th-century octagonal font stands in the church, and various stone wall memorials are located in the chancel and nave, including one dating to around 1778 commemorating Thomas Chawner and family on the north side of the nave.