Church Of St John The Baptist

KENLEY C.P. KENLEY SJ 50 SE 4/66 Church of St. John 13.6.58 the Baptist GV II*

Parish church. C12 and C14, restored c. 1854. Roughly coursed gritstone rubble, machine tile roofs. Nave and chancel in one, west tower and south porch. Tower: probably C12; squat in 2 stages with later pyramidal roof; rectangular chamfered openings to second stage on north, south and west and plain rectangular openings to bottom stage on south and west. Long nave and chancel in one; 3 mid-C19 windows with Y-tracery on south and 2 on north, all in slight recesses; north wall also has square-headed blocked doorway to chancel and an infilled round-arched doorway (probably C12), cut by western of two C19 windows; small blocked rectangular window to chancel on south; C14 east window of 2 cusped lights with quatrefoil and mouchettes above; gabled south porch with round-arched doorway probably C17. Interior: round-arched single-chamfered south doorway has nail- studded plank and muntin door (probably C17); narrow doorway to tower is pointed on east with 2 chamfered orders ending in small broaches and square-headed on west (door with long strap hinges); main feature is late C14 arch-braced collar beam roof, the 3 eastern trusses (to chancel) with cusped struts from collars forming quatrefoils, double purlins and cusped windbraces; the 2 eastern trusses to nave are boxed in (without struts to collars) and the western truss consists of a tie beam with raking struts supporting principal rafter; fine carved C17 pulpit has tester with pendant knobs, reading desk below made up of contemporary panels; hexagonal font 1875. No monumentsof note. The church is said to have been a dependent chapelry of Cound (q.v. under Church of St. Peter, Cound C.P.) in the medieval period and is stituated in an originally oval-shaped churchyard (q.v. under churchyard wall), suggestive of an early origin. B.O.E. p.159; D.H.S. Cranage, The Churches of Shropshire, Part 6 (1903) pp. 493-4; The Post Office Directory of Shropshire (1879) (ed. E. R. Kelly) p.336.

Listing NGR: SJ5627900795