Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

Parish church of 11th-century origin, substantially enlarged in the 13th, 14th and 17th centuries, and restored in 1896-7 by Hodgson Fowler. The building comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a west tower, and a south porch. It is constructed in coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has plain tiled and copper roofs.

The three-stage 11th-century tower is of plain unbuttressed Lincolnshire type, with an embattled parapet added in the 15th century and crocketted angle pinnacles. The belfry stage contains paired round-headed lights with circular midwall shafts topped by cushion capitals. The ground floor window on the south side has two orders of cable moulding to the narrow head.

The 14th-century north aisle features a moulded plinth and stepped buttresses with a hollow chamfered eaves course. Along its north wall are five windows: a three-light window to the west with 19th-century cusped flowing tracery, four three-light windows with cusped 19th-century tracery, pointed heads to the lights and trefoils, and a matching four-light window to the east. The 14th-century north door has angle shafts to the jambs and a deeply moulded pointed head. In the blocking of the chancel arch is a 16th-century four-centred arched doorway, above which sits a five-light 19th-century window with intersecting tracery.

The 14th-century south aisle has stepped buttresses and five three-light windows with intersecting Y-tracery, pointed heads and chamfered surrounds, plus a single similar window to the west. A 14th-century four-light window to the east wall features fine flowing cusped tracery, trefoils and attenuated quatrefoils.

The gabled 14th-century south porch has setback buttresses and a statue niche in the gable now containing a 19th-century carving of Our Lord. The outer arch is moulded and pointed with angle shafts and a hood with beast head stops. It contains side benches and an inner 14th-century door with a continuous chamfered surround.

Interior: The church has five-bay arcades of 13th-century date on both north and south sides. The arcade responds are slender and circular with keeled profiles and annular capitals, supporting double-chamfered arches with hollow moulded hoods and human head stops. The 11th-century tower arch is round-headed with chamfered imposts. The 14th-century chancel arch is blocked, hollow moulded with circular shafted reveals and annular capitals.

In the north aisle is a 14th-century piscina with cusped gabled head and two plain aumbries. The south aisle contains an early 14th-century piscina with cusped trefoil to the pointed head, and a Caernarvon arched doorway to the rood loft.

Fittings: The 14th-century octagonal font has sunk quatrefoils to the sides and cusped-headed statue niches; it is topped by an 18th-century ogee-shaped wooden cover with blank cusped panel decoration. Late 18th-century softwood panelling is reset around the font. Above the north door is a fine carved and painted Royal Arms of George III dated 1801. Late 17th-century altar rails with turned balusters survive. Most other fittings are 19th and 20th-century.

Monuments: The north aisle contains a wall monument to Robert Cawdron (died 1665) showing the deceased and three wives kneeling in two tiers of free-standing figures, with a scrolled broken pediment above and shield of arms, and a scrolled rectangular inscription panel beneath. A brass plaque commemorates Frances Cawdron (died 1650). An ashlar wall plaque to Robert Cawdron (died 1714) features Doric columns supporting a broken segmental pediment with paterae and flaming urn. A further alabaster wall plaque to Sir Robert Cawdron (died 1652) takes the form of an aedicule with broken pediment, escutcheon and line carvings of weepers beneath. The south wall bears a wall plaque with scrolls and acanthus leaves to the wife of Robert Cawdron (died 1733). In the south aisle vestry are two early 19th-century white marble plaques to members of the Dawson family.