Church Of St John The Baptist And St Alkmund

Church of St John the Baptist and St Alkmund

This is a parish church of 12th-century origin, extended in the mid-14th and late 14th centuries, rebuilt in the early 16th century, and restored in 1884-6. It is constructed of coursed rubble with ashlar dressings and tile roofs.

The church comprises a 14th-century west tower, 16th-century nave and aisles, and a 12th-century chancel.

The west tower has four stages with diagonal buttresses and a crenellated parapet. The ground stage features a tall 14th-century west door beneath a two-centred arch with three chamfered orders. The first stage contains a square-headed window with two trefoiled ogee lights in the west wall. The second stage has an east door leading to the nave roof. The belfry has windows of two trefoiled ogee lights under two-centred heads in each wall.

The south aisle comprises three bays with a 17th-century porch in the west bay, which has a cambered tie beam to the front gable. The two windows each have two cinquefoiled lights under square heads, and the east window has two cinquefoiled lights under a two-centred head. The clerestory above has three windows, each of two trefoiled lights, which are 14th-century but reset in the 16th century.

The north aisle has three windows, each of 16th-century date with two cinquefoiled lights under square heads. The clerestory windows are similar to those on the south side.

The chancel is 12th-century in origin, extended in the 14th century. The south wall has three windows: a restored 13th-century window of two trefoiled lights to the west, a 14th-century window of two cinquefoiled lights, and between them a 12th-century semicircular-headed window with tufa dressings. The north wall has a matching 12th-century window and a late 19th-century doorway. The east window is of late 14th-century date, restored in the 19th century, consisting of two cinquefoiled lights with a quatrefoil beneath a two-centred head and a moulded label.

INTERIOR

A rubble segmental vault beneath the tower leads to a 15th-century doorway with moulded jambs and a two-centred head. The nave has a three-bay arcade to each aisle, with 16th-century segmental-pointed arches of two chamfered orders. The reset 12th-century piers are square with shafted angles, attached half-piers to responds, and moulded plinths. The chancel arch is segmental-pointed with two chamfered orders, the inner springing from moulded imposts.

The nave roof is 19th-century, comprising three bays with shallow-pitched king-post trusses, while the aisles have simple lean-to roofs. The chancel roof is a wooden segmental barrel vault, also of 19th-century date.

The early 16th-century rood screen between chancel and nave features a central doorway flanked by three bays on each side. These bays have linen-fold lower panels and open upper panels with trefoiled and sub-cusped heads, with two similar heads to the doorway. An enriched middle rail and moulded and shafted posts support the vaulted soffit of the loft. The vaulting has moulded ribs and cusped panels with a moulded and brattished cornice.

Contemporary parclose screens enclose the east bay of both north and south aisles. Each screen has a central doorway flanked by four bays on each side, with side bays featuring linen-fold lower panels and open upper panels with cinquefoiled or trefoiled and sub-cusped heads, and double heads to the doorways. The cornice has a running vine decoration and is brattished. These are an exceptional survival of very high quality.

The early 18th-century altar rails have turned balusters and a moulded hand rail. The reredos consists of reset linen-fold panelling. A wall monument on the north wall of the chancel commemorates Robert Weever, died 1728, and is decorated with fluted Doric pilasters and entablature. An alabaster floor slab marks the burial of John Lingen, died 1506.

The pulpit in the north-east corner of the nave is of 17th-century date and has three panelled sides arranged in three ranges, with the middle range arcaded.