Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a chapel-of-ease, now serving as the parish church. The church dates from the mid-12th century, with the mid-14th century north aisle rebuilt in 1845 and an early 15th century west tower. The chancel was restored in 1862 and the rest of the church in 1868 at a cost of £1000. It is constructed of regularly coursed and dressed red sandstone blocks with slate roofs featuring coped verges and 19th-century crosses to the gables. The building comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, north aisle, south porch and north vestry.

The tower is in two stages with multi-stepped diagonal buttresses, a chamfered string course and plinth. The embattled parapet has carved heads to the cornice and gargoyles to the corners, much weathered. Restored louvred two-light windows to the belfry have mouchettes and sexfoils to the heads. A three-light west window has panel tracery. A projecting splayed staircase turret at the south-east angle features narrow rectangular slit openings and a grotesque head projecting at string course level. There is a narrow rectangular opening beneath the north belfry window. The tower is topped by a pyramidal slate cap with an 18th-century brass weathercock on a contemporary wooden finial. The earlier roof pitch of the nave is visible on the east face.

The nave is basically 12th century with a moulded string course. A 19th-century two-light Decorated-style window sits to the left of the porch with four quatrefoils to the square head. Two heavily restored 16th or 17th century two-light square-headed windows with cusped tracery are positioned to the right. The gabled stone porch of 1892 with a machine tile roof has a pointed outer arch with hoodmould and twin trefoil-headed windows to the east and west sides. A buttress at the south-west corner forms part of the tower, and a massive stepped buttress to the south-east corner is probably early 19th century. The east gable has a high chamfered plinth to the south and the possible outline of a former roof pitch. An oval-shaped window with a pierced cusped quatrefoil below the apex was inserted in 1676 and restored in the 19th century.

The chancel dates from the 12th century and was extended by one bay to the east around 1300, as evidenced by a straight joint on the north side. The south side has a round-headed priest's doorway similar to that at the Church of St Mary, Knockin. The outer arch has a chamfered hoodmould and moulded imposts. There is a recessed segmental-arched tympanum and chamfered inner jambs with broach stops to the top and inner moulded imposts. The date 1771 is inscribed on the eastern outer jamb. The hoodmould continues over two narrow recessed and chamfered round-headed windows to the east and formerly continued to the 12th-century east wall but is now carried down to the east of the second window. 19th-century two-light Decorated-style windows are positioned to the west of the doorway and to the early 14th-century extension. The east wall has stepped angle buttresses and a pointed 14th-century window of three cusped lights with spheric triangles to the head and a hoodmould. The north side has two small 12th-century windows like those on the south, linked by a continuous hoodmould which in this case continues to the straight joint. A low infilled 14th-century segmental-pointed arch below and between the windows is said to be associated with a former anchorite's cell. A three-light tile-hung gabled dormer to the centre in the roof slope was inserted in 1903.

The mid-19th century north aisle, on the site of a 14th-century aisle, is buttressed in four bays and has two- and three-light Decorated-style windows with hoodmoulds to the centre bays and to the east and west walls. The mid-19th century lean-to vestry at the junction with the nave at the east end has a lancet to the east side and paired trefoil-headed windows under a segmental arch to the north side. A probably late 18th-century lean-to at the west end of the aisle has a projecting keystone to a segmental arch on the north side and a rectangular chamfered window to the west.

Inside, the 12th-century south doorway is similar to that of the chancel but larger, with inner jambs having chamfered edges and broach stops to the top more clearly defined. The four-bay nave arcade is of two periods, with low octagonal pillars with plain moulded capitals and chamfered bases. The double-chamfered pointed arches, the western two with roll moulding and fillets, the eastern two plainer, the easternmost of irregular segmental-pointed shape. The west respond and west capital are early 13th century, the east respond and east capital are early to mid-14th century. Curiously, the eastern half of the middle capital is Early English and the western half is Decorated. The explanation appears to be that a two-bay chapel was built at the east end of the nave in the early 13th century; this was taken down in the 14th century when a full aisle was built, the chapel's capital, arches and two responds being reused in the aisle's construction. On the south-west face of the western pillar is a medieval carving of a horned head, said to represent the Devil. A broad cinquefoiled late 15th-century image niche was inserted in the eastern respond. To the west of the western respond is a low 19th-century segmental chamfered arch with dogtooth decoration dying into the western wall. The pointed chancel arch of 1862 with corbelled responds has a rectangular entrance to a former rood loft on the north side. The tall pointed tower arch is contemporary with the tower.

The probably early 17th-century arch-braced collar beam roof in five bays to the nave has two tiers of purlins and cusped windbraces, with cusped struts from collars forming cusped quatrefoil and trefoil patterns with cusped principal rafters. The carved wooden corbels probably date from 1845 when the roof was repaired, but the north side has three stone corbels from an earlier medieval roof, one with the carving of a human head and another with a carved ram's head. The chancel has a 19th-century arch-braced collar beam roof in three bays and the north aisle has a 19th-century roof similar to that of the nave, also retaining three stone corbels of a medieval roof, one with a carving of a grotesque human head.

The chancel has two pointed piscinae in the south wall and two aumbries to the north, all in the 12th-century part. A small square opening on the north side with hooks for a door opening outwards is said to be associated with the former anchorite's cell. There are two 19th-century sedilia below the east window on the south. The 12th-century string course and straight joint marking the break with the circa 1300 extension are clearly visible on both sides. The floor is of encaustic tiles except for a black and white marble floor around the altar, which has a stone reredos of circa 1892 by Bodley and Garner; the communion rails are probably of the same date. The reading desk and choir stalls date from 1903; the stone pulpit, font and benches are all late 19th century or later, although some benches incorporate Jacobean panelling. An oak chest at the west end of the aisle and a more elaborate Jacobean press at the east end are present. There is an 18th-century chair in the sanctuary and a Jacobean chair by the pulpit. A late 13th-century stone coffin lid with carving of a foliated cross of quatrefoil design at the east end of the aisle was found during rebuilding of the porch in 1892. Mid- to late 19th century and early 20th-century stained glass is present throughout.

Monuments include a memorial to Francis Thornes, who died in 1678, and his wife Beatrice, who died in 1664, on the chancel north side. This is a stone wall memorial with Tuscan columns flanking a brass inscription panel, two projecting pieces of entablature above and a dome-shaped top with conical finials to left, right and centre, with a further brass inscription panel beneath. A painted encaustic tile below commemorates George Augustus Selwyn, who died in 1878, Bishop of Lichfield and first Bishop of New Zealand. Sara Willaston, who died in 1622, is commemorated by a marble wall memorial on the chancel north side. A 17th-century brass memorial in the south-east corner of the chancel was illegible at the time of resurvey in December 1986 and has a brass plate beneath to Hannah Wilde, who died in 1759. A wall memorial to William Kinaston, who died in 1748, is on the north side of the north aisle. The church has 18th-century hatchments of local families, three on the north and one on the south. Late 18th and early 19th-century benefactors' boards are on the south and west walls of the vestry, and a cast-iron plate on the west wall of the tower commemorates the restoration of 1868.

Originally a dependent chapelry of Baschurch founded around 1140, Ruyton became a separate parish in 1230. The tithes were appropriated by Haughmond Abbey in 1331.