Church Of St John The Divine

The Church of St John the Divine is a Grade II listed church built in 1892 by architect A W Brewill for Robert Millington Knowles of Colston Bassett Hall. Constructed from ashlar with a blue slate roof, it features a cruciform plan, including a tower and spire over the crossing. The church has a three-bay nave with a clerestory, low lean-to aisles, a south porch, a single-bay chancel, and single-bay north and south transepts, all designed in the Perpendicular style. The aisle windows are three-light and square-headed, while other windows are three-light, except for the four-light east window, all adorned with Perpendicular tracery. The square tower is supported by diagonal buttresses and has two 2-light, louvred openings on each face for the bell chamber. It is topped with a crenellated parapet featuring corner and intermediate piers, and a tall, slender octagonal spire with lucarnes near the top.

Inside, the church has three-bay north and south arcades on short round piers with heavily foliated capitals. The spandrels are decorated with finely carved winged angels holding musical instruments, which support engaged colonnettes that lead to the arch-bracing of the two traceried and brattished principal roof trusses. At the west end, there is an oak-panelled box pew with an elaborate canopy. A tablet by the south door commemorates the church's erection by Robert Millington Knowles in memory of his eldest son, John Haslam Knowles, who died in 1890, and his wife, Alice Catherine Knowles, who died in March 1892. In the south chapel, there is a marble monument erected by Lord and Lady Crawshaw in memory of their daughter, Alice Catherine Knowles, featuring a well-carved life-size figure of an angel pointing to a cross against a simple background. The chapel also contains an early octagonal font with plain shields and a brattished rim, possibly from the old church of St Mary. The building is notable for its high standard of ashlar work and is an important site in the village.