Church Of St John The Baptist

HUGHLEY C.P. HUGHLEY SO 59 NE 8/60 Church of St John the Baptist 13.6.58 I

Parochial chapel, now parish church. C13 and c.1360 with early C18 belfry; restored 1871-2 by Richard Norman Shaw. Roughly coursed limestone and conglomerate rubble, sandstone ashlar dressings; timber framed belfry with red brick infill, machine tile roof with ornamental cresting and coped verges. Nave and chancel in one with west belfry; south porch. Nave: fabric of north wall C13, lancet to each side of pointed double-chamfered doorway with hoodmould; south doorway in similar style under late C17 gabled wooden porch (restored c.1871) with stone slate roof; windows in south wall (c.1360) have 2 cusped lights with quatrefoils above, one to west and 2 to east of porch; west window of 3 cusped lights with mouchettes above, restored by Shaw; timber framed belfry (1701) has close-set vertical posts with long straight tension braces; louvres and early C19 octagonal clock on south side. Chancel: in one bay has north and south windows identical to those in south wall of nave; east window of 3 lights with curvilinear tracery and cusped quatrefoil to apex; remains of stone cross to east gable. Interior: mid-C14 trussed rafter roof with carved bosses extending full length of church restored and boarded up by Shaw; late C17 carved wooden pulpit and late C19 octagonal stone font; in chancel are a pillar piscina (probably C15) and on the east wall a statue pedestal resting on the carved stone head of a woman which retains faint traces of paint;, also a stone altar slab fixed to wall on left of altar; late C14 stained glass in north and east windows - fragments of architectural canopies and figures, south window with stained glass of c.1915; chancel screen probably early C15, eight broad one-light divisions, 2 to centre with depressed arch beneath and 3 to either side, richly carved throughout with upper part of dado delicately pierced with a variety of late Decorated and Perpendicular tracery patterns, this is surmounted by a band of unpierced quatrefoils with a row of pierced quatrefoils and brattishing above; tracery to top of divisions also in a variety of forms, lierne-vaulted coving with large bosses and to the top a cornice and cresting with interweaving foliage and figural decoration; behind the screen, set in the floor, is a stone altar slab and a good set of late C14 glazed tiles; oak parish chest (possibly medieval) at west end of nave. No monuments of note. The church was originally a dependent chapelry of Much Wenlock and did not become a separate parish until the latter half of C14. The screen is said to be the finest in the county. B,o.E., Pp. 154-5; D.H.S. Cranage, The Churches of Shropshire, Part 3 (1897), Pp. 197-9.

Listing NGR: SO5648497932