Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a largely 19th-century church, rebuilt in 1891 by Nicholson and Son. It incorporates fabric from the 13th century and a 16th-century tower. The church is constructed of sandstone, with a rock-faced finish except for the random rubble west wall, and has a slate roof. It comprises a west tower, nave, lower chancel, and a west porch. The west window is of three trefoiled lights with a flat head. The tower is integrated within the nave and rises from the west wall, featuring a pyramid roof and two string courses. The upper stage has louvred bell openings with plain reveals, and the lower stage has loop openings on each side. The north wall of the nave contains two windows, each with two cusped ogee lights under a pointed head with reticulated tracery. A blocked, chamfered pointed doorway, possibly 13th century, is positioned between the windows, alongside a lancet window. The south nave wall has two similar windows of two lights, and to the west is a lancet window. The gabled porch has a moulded pointed doorway; the inner doorway appears to be re-set and re-cut with a keel-roll moulding. The chancel has two lancets in the north wall. The south wall features a window of one trefoiled ogee light to the right of a restored, possibly 13th-century, moulded pointed doorway. The east window is of three lights with Geometrical tracery. Both nave and chancel have gable copings with cross finials. Inside, the nave roof is boarded, with an elliptical section, ribs and carved bosses. The 13th-century chancel arch was raised and re-set in the 19th century, has semi-octagonal responds, is pointed and chamfered in two orders, and may contain reused 12th-century voussoirs. Two worn coffin lids with effigies are set into the east wall. A lead font, inscribed "WR", "WM" and "1689", with other relief decoration, sits on a sandstone base which incorporates a 13th-century capital. A wall tablet to John Howell (died 1750) is re-set in the south nave wall. The chancel windows contain early 20th-century glass, while a south nave window contains glass by Powell, dated 1890.