Church Of St John The Baptist And Monson Mausoleum

Church of St John the Baptist and Monson Mausoleum

This parish church dates from the 12th to 16th centuries, with significant additions and alterations made in 1851, when Watkins designed a mortuary chapel, and in 1859, when Teulon undertook a major remodelling and restoration of the church. The building is constructed from coursed limestone rubble with a banded slate roof.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisles, a north chapel, and a mortuary chapel beyond. The two-stage tower has a tall lower stage with belfry, moulded plinth, string course, and hipped slate roof. A 18th-century sundial is positioned on the south side of the tower. The west wall contains a single 16th-century four-centred arched window with sunk spandrels and above it a single chamfered segmental headed light. The belfry has two-light ogee cusped headed lights under flat hood moulds on each side.

The north aisle's west wall features a 19th-century two-light window, while the north aisle wall itself has three 19th-century lancets. The mortuary chapel's west wall is dominated by a central four-centred arched doorway with a segmental moulded head surround, base blocks, and broad architrave. Above the door is a coat of arms. Above the doorway rises a five-light window with brattished transome set in a four-centred concave moulded arch with hood mould rising to an ogee point beneath a pinnacle supporting a cross fleury at the gable. The pinnacle is flanked by angled shafts rising from angel corbels and terminating in castellated finials. Buttresses to either side of the front contain niches with nodding ogee heads. The north side of the mortuary chapel is blank except for a frieze at high level containing three ogee headed vents. The east end features a niche with an elaborate pinnacled canopy.

The north chapel's east wall contains two 19th-century two-light windows with ogee heads to the lights. The chancel's east window is 14th-century work, comprising three lights with curvilinear tracery. The chancel's south wall has three 19th-century lancet windows and a blank niche beneath. The south aisle wall has two 19th-century geometric two-light windows. A 19th-century south porch has a stone base supporting an open-sided timber structure with gabled roof and figured bargeboard. The south door is 19th-century, moulded with hood mould and label stops.

Interior

The north and south arcades each comprise three bays. The early 13th-century north arcade contains one circular pillar with keeled responds and double chamfered arches with elaborate label stops to the hood mould. The third bay to the east also has keeled responds and double chamfered arches with hood mould and ammonite label stops. The early 14th-century south arcade has octagonal piers and plain 19th-century responds. The capitals are octagonal with ball decoration on the undersides, and have double chamfered arches. The 12th-century tower arch is round-headed with chamfered imposts and plastered reveals, though on the west side an earlier 13th-century two-centred arch is visible above it, indicating that the tower arch is reset. In the north wall of the chancel is an early 13th-century arch into the north chapel with keeled responds and double chamfered arch. The roof over the nave and chancel features 19th-century elaborately carved crown posts with painting above the chancel.

Fittings

The 16th-century wood screen is remarkable, featuring a central four-centred arch with carving of the sun and moon in the spandrels and painted heraldic shields above. The lower panels have semi-circular heads and the upper panels have ogee heads with bilobes and fleurons on the midrail and cornice. In the sanctuary are two contemporary choir stalls with elaborately cusped blank arcading and poppy head bench ends, plus four other poppy heads. Also in the sanctuary is a 17th-century altar table with turned legs. The altar rails, pulpit, and font are all 19th-century. Five hatchments to the Monson family hang in the nave.

Monuments and Memorials

In the north chapel, behind a screen of wrought iron railings on the north side of the chancel, stands an elaborate alabaster and marble tomb to Sir John and Lady Monson (1625), executed by Nicholas Stone. This is a free-standing six-poster with effigies of the deceased in plate armour reclining with his wife on embroidered cushions. The large tomb chest has nine kneeling weepers at the sides and foot. Six Doric columns support an elaborate scrolled and raised pediment containing a Latin inscription on the south side. Also in the north chapel are fragments of two 13th-century cross fleury decorated tombstones, the matrix for a 16th-century brass, and other fragments of statuary.

In the chancel north wall is an 18th-century marble plaque to Thomas Carlton with arms above and crossed palm leaves beneath. In the mausoleum is a monument to the 6th Lord Monson (died 1864), by Bartolini and Bencini, a copy of a monument in the Annunciata in Florence. It is set on a high plinth in neo-mid-18th-century style with a large coat of arms and lush foliage above.