Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

This parish church has medieval origins but was almost entirely rebuilt between 1860 and 1862 by architect J. Ashdown of London in the Decorated style, with the exception of the tower. The building is constructed in pink sandstone ashlar with tiled roofs featuring fish-scale bands, coped verges to the gables, and a corbel table.

The church comprises a nave and chancel, a west tower that is engaged to the aisles (the north aisle continuous, the south aisle with a separate chapel at its east end), a south porch, a choir vestry to the west of the tower, and a priest's vestry to the east of the south aisle chapel.

The tower dates from around 1350 and was remodelled in the early 17th century and restored around 1860. It is tall with three stages and set-back buttresses. The belfry windows are two-light cusped openings with quatrefoils above, dating from around 1350, with hoodmoulds featuring grotesque labels from the early 17th century. The top is battlemented with corner pinnacles and gargoyles, topped with a 20th-century brass weathercock. The slightly splayed flat-headed window on the west face of the second stage is probably 17th century, though the statue pedestal and gabled canopy above date from the 14th century; the statue itself is 19th century. The rather high west window dates from around 1860 and has the flat-roofed choir vestry of 1909 beneath it.

The south aisle is a buttressed structure of three bays with unconventional Flamboyant window tracery. A gabled porch occupies its western bay. To the east is a higher chapel of two bays with plainer window tracery, followed by the gabled priest's vestry. The short chancel has two bays (the western bay overlapped by the priest's vestry on the south and by the nave aisle on the north). The east window is blocked, though two stone angels remain to indicate its former dimensions. The north aisle comprises six bays with window tracery exhibiting a variety of Victorian Decorated styles.

Architecturally, the most notable interior features are the pointed arches through which the tower opens to the nave on the east and to the aisles on the north and south. More striking, however, are the furnishings provided in 1910 by Cecil Hare, a pupil of Bodley, under the patronage of F.G. Lindley Meynell. Hare was responsible for the screens, gilded reredos (which blocks the east window), the organ gallery, choir stalls, marble flooring, pulpit, brass chandeliers, and the panelled and painted chancel roof. Under his direction, the great majority of the present stained glass was installed.

Other notable interior features include the font of 1861, unusually built into the north-east pillar of the tower, and a 16th-century alms-dish on a stand incorporating the inscriptions of two early 17th-century bells that formerly hung in the tower.

The church contains several important monuments. In the north aisle chapel is the Gerard monument to Sir Gilbert (died 1592) and his wife (died 1608). This is a large alabaster rib-vaulted canopy with round arches at either end and obelisks above two recumbent effigies, with subsidiary figures at the head, foot, and in a panel behind. Beneath is a much-worn medieval statue of a shroud-wrapped figure, which from its weathering was probably originally in an external position.

Above the chancel arch (though probably not in its original position) is the memorial to William Chetwynd of Maer Hall (died 1770) by Joseph Wedgwood, comprising a basalt urn on a narrow inscribed plinth with a fuller inscription on a panel beneath. On the chancel south wall is a large tablet with a mourning putto by Nollekens to Hugo Meynell (died 1800). On the north aisle chapel wall is a tablet with a standing putto by an urn to Elizabeth Ingram (died 1817).

The principal remaining monuments are in the south aisle chapel and commemorate members of the Kinnersley family, whose chapel this was: William Shepherd (died 1823) by Ternouth; Thomas (died 1826) by Chantrey; Anne (died 1843) and Harriot (also died 1843); Thomas (died 1859) by Noble; and Elizabeth (died 1865). All are good examples of 19th-century funerary art.

A 17th-century cauldron-shaped font, formerly inside the church, now stands outside immediately to the east of the south porch.

The church is said to have been founded by Philip de Bromley around 1250, with documentary evidence that it was rebuilt around 1350 by David ap Cynwrig. The 1860–1862 rebuilding was financed by the Kinnersleys and cost £30,000.