Church Of St John The Baptist In The Wilderness

Church of St John the Baptist in the Wilderness

This is a church of 13th century or earlier origins, with a 13th-century tower to which a 19th-century bell stage was added. The building was very largely rebuilt in the mid-19th century. It is constructed of ironstone, with the chancel and nave north walls and lower stages of the tower built in rubble, the chancel and upper part of the tower in squared coursed stone, the south chapel and nave walls, porch and turret in regular coursed stone, and the north chapel in rock-faced stone. The tile roofs feature coped gable parapets and kneelers.

The church comprises a chancel, north and south chapels, nave, north porch, west tower, and south-west turret. The chancel is two bays and the nave two bays. The chancels and chapels have diagonal buttresses with two offsets. Windows vary in design but are mostly Perpendicular in style. The three-light east window and two-light chapel north windows have hood-moulds with return stops. The north chapel has east and west lancets with a sill course stepping down to left and right. Below a Tudor arch with hood-mould and carved lozenge stops is a 14th-century foliated stone child's coffin lid inset. The gable contains a small foliated cross inset, and is topped with a cross finial. The south chapel is similar but contains early to mid-18th-century inset carved panels depicting a skull, hour glass, sickle and other memento mori imagery. All insets are of white stone. The porch has a splayed plinth and sill course with a moulded 14th to 15th-century arch and two-light windows. A moulded north doorway contains a plank door. The porch and nave contain largely or wholly 19th-century Decorated straight-headed windows. The north side has a three-light window with a frieze of ogee arches on corbels. The south side has a blocked chamfered-arch doorway with hood-mould, a three-light eastern window and a two-light western window. The tower is in three stages. The west face has a lancet window. The second stage is blank. The third stage has two-light openings with geometrical tracery and nook shafts, and slate louvres. A moulded cornice and parapet with pinnacles cap the tower. A round south-west turret extends to the first stage only, with a chamfered straight-headed west door, a slit window to the south, and a moulded cornice and parapet.

Interior

The walls are plastered. The chancel east and north windows have plaster hood-moulds; the east window has head stops. The sanctuary has a plaster panelled dado of blind tracery. A good mid-19th-century encaustic tile floor, probably by Minton to designs by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, covers the floor. The chancel and nave have richly decorated hammer-beam roofs with moulded timbers and openwork. The chancel roof has moulded corbels carved with symbolic animals holding banners, and hammer-beams with angels holding texts. A ribbed panelled roof has elaborate bosses. Moulded stone arches to the chapels have shafts and hood-moulds. The chancel arch is in Early English style with three orders and triple shafts, with a cinqfoiled circular opening above. The nave north door has a hood-mould. The nave roof is a double hammerbeam design, with each bay divided into two by subsidiary hammerbeam trusses. Hammerbeams have gilt foliage bosses and upper beams have painted shields. The roof is elaborately carved with panelled sections and decorative wind bracing. The tower arch is Early English in style with a moulded design, colonnettes with naturalistically carved capitals and corbels.

The church contains a 17th-century octagonal font and lid with finial on a 19th-century stem. A Perpendicular mid-19th-century altar rail and a mid to late 19th-century screen are present. The lavishly carved mid-19th-century pulpit features twisted columns, Gothic tracery and naturalistic foliage. A lectern with buttresses and angle brackets stands nearby. Benches have carved fleurs-de-lys ends and Gothic open panels. The mid-19th-century chancel stalls have arcading. Text panels on the east wall have elaborate plaster Gothic frames with painted curtains from which a plaster hand emerges holding a board painted as an open book. Stained glass includes some late 16th-century heraldic panels in the nave south-west window and many mid-19th-century windows.

Monuments

The church contains an excellent collection of monuments to the Shuckburgh family, who have lived at Shuckburgh for a thousand years.

In the chancel south are monuments to Anthony (died 1594) and Anne, represented by a pair of brasses; John (died 1724), with a wall monument by Hunt of Northampton; and Catherine (died 1683), with a fine Baroque wall monument featuring a portrait bust.

The north chapel contains a lower half of a brass to Margaret Cotes (c.1500); parts of brasses to Thomas (died 1549) and Elizabeth; and a classical wall monument of coloured marble with a fine portrait medallion to Sir Stukeley.

The south chapel has a large painted monument with effigies, deep arch and canopy with columns, to Margery (died 1629) and John (died 1631); and an elaborate Baroque monument on a pedestal with a bust in a niche to Richard S. (died 1663), said to be by Beniers.

The nave north contains a Neoclassical wall monument to Sir Stewkeley (died 1809), a Neoclassical wall monument with sarcophagus angel and urn to Lady S. (died 1783), and a wall monument with globe and astrolabe by Flaxman to Sir George Shuckburgh-Evelyn (died 1804).

The nave south contains a wall monument to Lady Grace (died 1677), and a fine Neoclassical wall monument by Flaxman, with relief of the deceased and her grieving family around her, to Lady Shuckburgh-Evelyn (died 1797). A Lady S. (died 1846) is commemorated by an elaborate Gothic wall monument by R. Brown, with a hand holding a brass scroll. Many good 18th-century, 19th-century and early 20th-century tablets are also present throughout the church.