Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a church dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, with restorations in the 19th century. It is built from coursed rubble stone, featuring an ashlar tower and roofs that are partly parapetted and leaded. The church includes a west tower and spire, a nave, a chancel, a south aisle, and a south porch. It has various buttresses, including diagonal and angle types, all with set-offs, and stone-coped gables topped with finials. Most windows have hood moulds.

The 14th-century tower consists of three stages, with a plinth and angle buttresses. The west window features 19th-century stained glass, while there are small one-light windows for the southwest stair, a clock face on the west side, and four two-light bell openings. Above the tower, there is a frieze decorated with fleurons, heads, and central gargoyles, followed by battlements and a recessed, crocketted spire with small quatrefoil lucarnes.

Inside, there is a triple chamfered arch leading to the nave, which has three large Perpendicular-style north windows with transoms and four-centred heads, featuring cusped lights. Two of these windows have stained glass from 1937 and 1867. The 14th-century south arcade consists of four bays with double chamfered arches on octagonal piers. The Perpendicular clerestory has four two-light windows on the south side, and the 19th-century roof is a low-pitch tie beam design. The chancel arch is also double chamfered, and the 14th-century chancel has windows with restored curvilinear tracery and stained glass from 1856-1857.

The south aisle features a Perpendicular east window and south and west windows with restored curvilinear tracery. One south window has stained glass from 1822, while the others contain mid or later 19th-century stained glass. The south door has a double chamfered arch, and the south porch, dating from the 15th century, has a richly moulded doorway, a holy water niche to the right, and a small niche with a later statue above.

Inside the church, there is a 15th-century parclose screen leading to the Ashby Chapel in the south aisle, a square Norman font decorated with concentric lozenges, six hatchments, and wall monuments. These include memorials to G. Ashbie from 1653, Dorothy Ashby from 1681, Shuckburgh Ashby from 1792 by Thomas Banks, and Francis Cave de Baggrave and his wife from 1568.