Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a parish church largely dating to the 12th century, with significant additions and alterations in the 13th, 14th, and 19th centuries. The church is situated in Upton Bishop. It is constructed primarily of sandstone rubble with a stone slate roof.

The church comprises a west tower, a nave with a south aisle and south porch, a chancel, and a south vestry added in 1880. The west tower has three stages, featuring stepped diagonal buttressing, two string courses, and a plain parapet. It contains a trefoil-headed light within a square-headed surround to the second stage, and two trefoil-headed lights with a quatrefoil to the belfry. The south aisle has a two trefoiled-ogee headed lights to a square-headed window to the left, alongside a similar three-light window to the right of the south porch. The east window of the south aisle features two cinquefoil-headed lights with a quatrefoil. The west window presents a trefoiled-ogee-headed light. The gabled south porch has a raised verge and a two-centred outer doorway with two chamfered orders, the inner orders dying into the responds. Single trefoil-headed lights are set within its returns. The chancel has two trefoiled-ogee-headed lights with a quatrefoil to the left, partly obscured by a 19th-century octagonal vestry, and a similar two-light window to the right of the vestry. The east window consists of early 13th-century lancets flanking a later inserted 14th-century window of two trefoiled-ogee-headed lights and quatrefoil.

Inside, the tower arch is tall with two moulded orders. The south aisle arcade has three bays of two-centre-headed arches supported by drum piers with moulded bases and capitals, exhibiting trumpet and foliate-type enrichment, largely restored. A blocked 12th-century doorway with a semicircular head is visible within the north wall of the nave. The east end of the chancel features lancets with moulded reveals. Fittings include a 14th-century font with a faceted stem and octagonal bowl, with quatrefoil panels to each side, and a 17th-century hexagonal pulpit with enriched arcaded panels. A south aisle recess contains a segmental pointed arch with chamfered jambs, housing a male effigy in contemporary costume holding a square object, flanked by trefoiled ogee-headed piscinae. Incorporated into the south wall of the chancel are fragments of sculptural reliefs believed to be part of a Roman tombstone.