Church of St. John

The Church of St. John is a parish church dating from 1860-61, designed by David Brandon, with a south aisle added by G.E. Street. It is constructed of rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings, and has a clay tile roof with coped verges. The building comprises a five-bay nave with a north porch, a two-bay chancel with a canted east end, a north-east tower with angle buttresses, and a south-east vestry.

The nave’s bay divisions are marked by buttresses, and its windows feature two cusped pointed lights separated by a central colonette mullion with naturalistic foliated capitals, topped with plate-traceried quatrefoils and pointed hood mouldings terminating in naturalistic foliage. The west window has two trefoil-headed lights and a central colonette mullion supporting Y-tracery incorporating cusped circles, roll and fillet moulding, and a hood terminating in the heads of a King and Queen. A quatrefoiled light is above the gabled timber-framed porch leading to a pointed door with a roll and fillet moulded hood.

The south aisle is similarly divided by buttresses, with single or paired lancet windows. The south-east vestry has a segmental pointed doorway to the west and a Caernarvon arch window to the east. The chancel features buttresses to each angle and pointed windows with two cusped pointed lights and a sexfoil above. The north-east tower has three stages; the lower stage has windows with two cusped pointed lights and plate-traceried trefoils, the second stage has simple straight-headed loops, and the belfry stage has two cusped lancets on each side.

Inside, the nave arcade consists of slim cylindrical columns with moulded bases and capitals, supporting double chamfered pointed arches. The pointed chancel arch has three orders of roll and fillet moulding and stiff leaf capitals to cylindrical columns, while the pointed and chamfered tower arch is also noted. The nave roof has arch-braced scissor trusses, with braces springing from stone corbels carved with naturalistic foliage. The aisle roof features arch springing from corbels to support a single purlin. The chancel roof has scissor bracing, and the canted east end has roll and fillet moulded braces springing from foliated corbels.

Notable fittings include a stone font with a quadrilobe shaft and base to an octagonal bowl having serrated edges to its circular panels containing foliage. An octagonal stone pulpit has trefoil arched side panels. There is also an altar rail of twisted wrought iron standards with scrolled brackets and leaf decoration attached to a wooden rail, and an oak chest dated 1608.