Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

This is the parish church of Dronfield, a substantial medieval structure begun in the late 13th century and extended through the 14th century. The building underwent significant alterations in the mid-16th century, extensive repairs around 1819, and further modifications in 1855 and 1916. A modern service extension was added in 1984.

The church is constructed of ashlar and coursed rubble coal measures sandstone with coped gables, moulded finials, and a roof of graduated slate and lead. The plan comprises a west tower, nave with north and south aisles, south aisle doorway, chancel, vestry, and 20th-century service extension.

The four-stage tower rises from a deeply moulded three-tier plinth with shallow gabled diagonal buttresses terminating at crocketed corner pinnacles. Moulded string courses mark each stage. The bell stage features pointed-arched Perpendicular two-light windows incorporating clock faces, with hoodmoulds that project into the fourth stage. The top is finished with an embattled Perpendicular ashlar parapet, moulded tabling below, and grotesque spouts. A slender octagonal spire rises above, divided by two tiers of lucarnes. The tower's west doorway has a deeply moulded pointed arch beneath a hoodmould with label stops, with a single order of 13th-century columns supporting a two-light Y-tracery window above featuring an ogee hoodmould.

The south porch has a shallow gable with flat gable copings and a moulded pointed arch doorway with carved stops. The inner doorway has a steeply pointed triple stepped profile. The roof structure comprises two shallow arched trusses with moulded principal rafters rising from moulded wall posts, carved bosses, and a single purlin and ridge purlin.

The five-bay south aisle has stepped angle buttresses at the ends and shallow buttresses beneath windows. An ashlar parapet above a string course is pierced by clusters of three trefoil lights inserted in 1866 to light galleries. The two bays east of the porch contain late 13th-century three-light pointed windows with intersecting tracery beneath hoodmoulds. The easternmost bay has a Perpendicular three-light flat-headed window with ogee heads to the lights and double daggers above. The east window has five lights with intersecting tracery, the top intersections replaced by a quatrefoil. A similar four-light window without quatrefoil appears at the west end. The nave clerestory features three two-light flat-headed windows with trefoil heads linked by a moulded string course beneath a shallow parapet.

The three-bay chancel rises from a two-tier moulded plinth with a ridge taller than the nave. It has deeply moulded surrounds to pointed Decorated windows with restored intersecting tracery and cusped quatrefoils at the heads. Below the central window is an off-centre priest's doorway with ogee-headed surround beneath a stepped string course linking the chancel window sills. The door is oak plank. At the west end, a set-back panel avoids obstructing a window to the Lady Chapel. Between windows are tall stepped and gabled buttresses with blind sub-cusping and pinnacles to gable heads, repeated as clasping buttresses at the east end. The tall seven-light east window has a deeply moulded Decorated surround; its original Decorated tracery collapsed in 1563 and was replaced by moulded major and minor mullions with transoms.

A two-storey vestry and sacristy attach to the chancel's north wall, featuring gabled and pinnacled angle buttresses. The east wall has a flat-headed two-light window beneath a hoodmould with stops on the ground floor and a two-light first-floor window with ogee heads. An octagonal stair tower with squat spire rises at the angle of the west wall and chancel, featuring lancets, lucarnes, and a four-centred arched doorway to the west wall.

The north aisle contains 13th-century pointed two-light windows with quatrefoils to the heads of the mullions. An ashlar parapet features clusters of trefoil lights as in the south aisle. The west end has a two-light Y-tracery window. A 20th-century link passage and extension extends to the rear of the north aisle.

The interior features a tall stepped and chamfered tower arch with a cluster of half shafts with simply moulded capitals. A four-bay nave arcade has stepped and chamfered arches, almost semi-circular but just pointed, with circular arcade piers, simply moulded capitals, and roll and hollow mouldings to the base. Plain square plinths terminate the arcade at pendant corbels in the chancel arch wall. The nave clerestory sits above the arcade; the window adjacent to the chancel arch is blocked, and nearly at the junction of the nave north arcade and chancel arch is an ogee-headed rood loft doorway with a moulded surround. The line of a deeply pitched earlier nave roof is visible from within. King-post trusses with cambered tie beams support a single-purlin roof, with raking side struts supporting the purlins and the ridge carried on longitudinal braces from the king posts.

A double stepped and chamfered chancel arch has simple mouldings to base and capitals. Squints on either side feature ogee-headed arches. The chancel north wall has an ogee-headed doorway beneath a stepped hoodmould forming part of a continuous string course linking the window sills. A doorway to the chancel south wall has a depressed pointed arch beneath a stepped hoodmould linked to this string.

Decorated triple sedilia with sub-cusped heads feature crockets and finials; octagonal shafts with moulded capitals and bases separate the seats. A detached piscina with ogee head contains two smaller ogee-headed arches and a central shaft, with the moulded string carried over as a hoodmould. A simple piscina appears on the south aisle chapel's south wall. Against the tower arch stands a font with a plain octagonal medieval bowl set on an octagonal stem and stepped base of 1916. A fluted 18th-century font stands near the nave north door.

The furnishings include an elaborately carved 17th-century oak pulpit with hexagonal drum, its facets decorated with arcade work and separated by carved colonnettes linking carved panelled bands above and below. The pulpit was lowered in 1917 and the staircase replaced with the present 19th-century cast-iron spiral stair. An altar and reredos date to 1907 by Advent Henstone of Tideswell. Some remaining parts of 15th-century choir stalls are incorporated within 19th-century benches. Fragments of medieval glass are found in two chancel south wall windows and one to the chancel north wall.

The church contains a substantial collection of monuments and brasses. A brass commemorates Thomas Godfrey, died 1399, Rector, and his brother Richard, in the chancel floor. A brass of seven plates honours John Fanshawe, died 1580, with his wife Margaret and children, on the chancel north wall. An alabaster effigy on a chest tomb, dating to the mid-15th century, depicts Sir Richard Barley with side and end panels showing angels holding shields. Over 120 brasses, monuments, and memorials pave the nave and chancel. A parish chest with seven lock hasps stands against the south aisle wall.