Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

This parish church is a substantial stone building of medieval origin with significant additions and alterations spanning from the 12th to the early 20th century. The structure is built of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings and lead roofs, comprising a west tower, nave with north and south aisles, and chancel.

The Tower

The tower dates from the 16th century and stands in two stages. It has a chamfered plinth, moulded string courses, and an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles. Angled corner buttresses are present to the first stage only. The parapet is topped with a moulded string course featuring two grotesque chutes facing north and south. The south face displays two narrow stair lights and an openwork clock beneath belfry level. The western face contains a low doorway with a semi-circular head formed from a massive stone lintel with chamfered jambs. Above the door, slightly offset to the left, is a 16th-century three-light window with panel tracery, a hood mould with label stops, and concave moulded jambs. The belfry lights on each face have two louvred openings with cusped heads and panel tracery above, topped with a plain moulded hood mould. On the north side, where the tower meets the nave, half a blocked pointed arcade arch is visible, indicating it was cut by the addition of the tower.

The Aisles and Clerestorey

The north aisle is shorter than the nave by one half bay and contains two 19th-century two-light windows with trefoil heads. The clerestorey features two 16th-century three-light windows with trefoil heads and flat heads, extensively restored in the 19th century. The north wall of the chancel has a 19th-century roll moulded sill string course and moulded eaves course. A small blocked doorway with hood mould and human mask label stops is present, alongside a three-light early 14th-century window with geometric tracery and a 19th-century hood mould with human mask label stops.

The south side of the chancel contains a 16th-century three-light window with trefoil heads under a very flat four-centred arch. A smaller single-light window sits at a lower level in the angle between chancel and south aisle, cut down with a square hood mould and human mask stops inserted above it. The south aisle roof has been lowered. The east window of the south aisle has two pointed lights under a flat hood mould, with the lower part constructed in banded ironstone and limestone work.

The south face of the south aisle displays two 19th-century two-light windows with trefoil heads and a fine 14th-century doorway with traceried woodwork in the side and head panels; the middle of the door dates from the 19th century. The doorway has slender engaged shafts with octagonal capitals and moulded head. The hollow moulded hood mould is decorated with fleurons on its underside and terminates in human head label stops. In the west wall of the aisle is a single trefoil-headed light with sunken spandrels. The blocked arcade is visible on this side as on the north. At the east end of the nave is a three-light trefoil-headed window at high level.

Interior Arcades and Nave

Inside, the church has three-bay north and south arcades dating from the late 12th century, with circular piers, square bases and abaci, and single plain arches. The capitals and responds are decorated with scallops and, on the south side, with leaf patterns. To the west are half bays of early 13th-century character with simply moulded chamfered imposts and hood moulds. The tower arch springs from corbels in the form of engaged octagons with human heads and has a double-chamfered pointed arch.

The south aisle contains a triangular-headed stoup east of the south door and a cut-back triangular-headed piscina at the east end. The columns all have chases down their sides from former box pews. The 15th-century nave roof was restored around 1905 and retains extensive 15th-century fabric consisting of moulded tie beams, purlins, principal rafters, and a ridge with four original decorated roof bosses and 20th-century bosses at intersections. The wall plate is brattished with battlements and has fleurons and other designs on its underside. The south aisle has three tie beams.

The Chancel

The 13th-century chancel arch has engaged octagonal responds with curling corbels and is double-chamfered. Traces of an earlier chancel arch are visible on the south side. Also on the south side is a piscina with an early quadrapartite pierced base and 19th-century trefoil head. On the north side is a triangular-headed aumbry and, further west, a blocked doorway with timber lintel. The chancel roof spans two bays with a canted moulded tie beam, moulded rafters, and purlins. Decorative bosses are positioned at intersections, one displaying a coat of arms. The wall plate is also decorated with abstract patterns. Stained glass in the chancel dates from the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Fittings and Monuments

The altar rails are 17th-century with fine splat balusters and winged lions' heads to either side of the central opening; they are stained green and were originally grained. In the chancel are two 17th-century coffin stools. The pulpit dates from the 18th century and is constructed of oak with raised and fielded panels. The pews, other fittings, and font date from 1905. A prayer desk at the west end is also of 17th-century splat balusters, and near it stands an iron-bound chest. On the eastern pier of the north aisle is a graffito of two hands with dots on the fingers.

Monuments include fragments of two 15th-century inscribed recumbent slabs at the west end of the nave. A 13th-century stepped base cross slab is built into the sill of the south-east window. In the chancel are brass plates inscribed to members of the Monson family: William Monson, died 1638; Anthony Monson, died 1648, with a brass plate showing an achievement of arms, the matrix of which is formed from a Medieval altar stone having five consecration crosses; and a stone to Francis Monson, died 1664.