Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a Grade I listed church built between 1757 and 1775 by John Wing the Younger for William Fortrey, the Squire of King's Norton. Constructed from ashlar, it features a parapetted roof and a west tower with a nave and chancel under one roof, designed in the Gothic Revival style. The church has a plinth, buttresses, and angle buttresses with set-offs, while the windows are adorned with ogee hood moulds and label stops.

The west tower consists of four stages, showcasing a west doorway and various windows, including quatrefoil and cusped diamond openings in the lower three stages. It is decorated with three friezes of quatrefoils, circles with wheels of mouchettes, and cusped triangles, along with four paired two-light bell openings, a machicolated frieze, a cornice frieze, and an openwork parapet featuring quatrefoils and crocketted pinnacles. A crocketted spire was destroyed by lightning in 1850.

The nave is lined with seven two-light windows on each side, featuring transoms and Reticulated tracery. Above these windows is a cusped triangle frieze, an openwork parapet of quatrefoils, and additional crocketted pinnacles. The east end has three windows, all with Late Geometrical tracery.

Inside, the church is laid out on a collegiate plan and remains remarkably complete and unchanged. It includes a west gallery supported by Roman Doric columns, a three-decker pulpit at the east end of the nave with gates leading to the chancel, and a communion rail in the Gothick style. There is a carved wooden reredos, a Gothick font, and box pews. The Royal Arms are displayed on canvas, and a clock and chiming machine dated 1765 is inscribed to Joseph Eayre of St. Neots, who cast most of the bells.

On the north side, there is a finely carved stone monument with a wrought iron railing, featuring a pedestal with an inscription panel dedicated to John Smalley, who died in 1763, along with a coat of arms topped with a broken pediment and flanked by urns with flame finials. This church is noted for its serious purpose and remarkable design, particularly in its tower, making it one of the most significant examples of the Early Gothic Revival in England, as highlighted by architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner.