Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

Church. Built in 1864 by John Croft. The building is constructed of squared coursed ironstone with limestone quoins, dressings and tracery, and some lias stone. The roofs are of old tile with moulded coped gable parapets. The plan is aisled and cruciform, with a south-west porch tower, and contains a 2-bay chancel and 3-bay nave.

The architecture is highly idiosyncratic High Victorian Gothic. A splayed plinth and cornice run throughout. Lias bands feature extensively, with window voussoirs stepped down and continued as bands. The chancel has diagonal buttresses combined with angle buttresses, which merge into angle piers with moulded cornices and pinnacles. The east window consists of a triplet of stepped lancets with unusual chamfered and notched tracery of no definite style, with a buttress below. Single sharp north and south lancets flank the east window. The north side has two weatherboarded gablets; the south side has a stone gablet with blind trefoil.

North and south projections have buttresses rising to pinnacles. The north projection has a catslide roof and half-dormer with lancet and scooped-out shaped gable with finial, and a small trefoil opening to the east. The south projection has a window of three graduated lancets and a star, with a gable topped by a star finial.

The north and south transepts have flanking buttresses, with those to the north of two offsets. Windows consist of triple stepped lancets and piercings, with a small trefoiled circle opening above. The gables have moulded kneelers and openwork cross finials.

The octagonal south-west porch tower has two stages with angle buttresses and a moulded string course. The south portal features a large gable with finial on chamfered and notched piers. Chamfered arches frame the opening. The recessed plank door has elaborately scrolled hinges. Left and right sides have lancets and relieving arches with projecting sills. The bell stage has paired bar stop-chamfered and shaped lancets beneath an arcaded cornice. Each face of the tower has a gable with stepped lancets and fleur-de-lys finial. The tower gables, window relieving arches and portal gable are faced with purple chippings. The spire has roll-moulded ribs with small quatrefoil and trefoil openings, and a weather vane.

The outer south aisle window is of four lancets. The 2-bay aisle has angle and single south buttresses, with 2-light windows of unusual notched and bar stop-chamfered tracery: the eastern has a sexfoil, the western has quatrefoils. The aisles have run-out chamfered trefoiled west lancets with continuous roofs from the nave.

The west front has a narthex of contrasting orange stone between two large buttresses of two offsets with gablet finials. A large wide gable with star finial crowns the facade. A large chamfered arch contains two entirely separate chamfered arched doorways and a cusped lozenge opening with wrought iron gates. The interior of the arch features polychromatic brick vaults. The shouldered doorways have plank doors with elaborately scrolled hinges. Five cusped elliptical openings appear to left and right and behind the gable, with a rose window above.

Interior

The interior is polychromatic, with plastered walls and piers, arches and bands of red terracotta with white joints, limestone and blue brick. Notched saw-toothed arches frame all openings throughout. The chancel has blind arcading flanking the windows, with an unglazed north triple lancet window opening to the vestry and a south arch to the organ chamber. The western half-bay has trefoiled arches with segmental-pointed relieving arches to north and south. Two bays feature quadripartite rib vaulting with limestone ribs and carved bosses, and terracotta coffering of various patterns. A wide chancel arch has limestone responds.

The nave has 3-bay arcades of diagonally-set chamfered square piers with simply-moulded capitals and inner orders of limestone. An unusual hammer-beam roof features two hammer-beam trusses with applied decoration and saw-toothed paired collars to each bay, with subsidiary rafters and collars and purlins. Trefoiled openwork appears above the wallplate. The transepts have recesses below the windows and hammer-beam roofs with shaped braces. Narrow aisles flank the nave, with a 2-bay arcade to the outer south aisle. South and outer aisles have arches leading to an entrance vestibule. The vestibule has an octagonal vault with notched limestone ribs and patterned terracotta coffering, and a trap door.

Fittings include a 13th century tapering cylindrical font with simple arcading. A reredos features intersecting arcading. The pulpit, pews and benches with carved ends, altar rails, and all fittings date to 1864.

This represents a complete and highly original example of High Victorian 'rogue architecture'.