Church of St. John the Baptist

SP4050 7/1

AVON DASSETT AVON DASSETT ROAD (East side) Church of St. John the Baptist

30/05/67

GV II* Church. Rebuilt 1868. Ironstone ashlar. Tile roofs have coped gable parapets; stone stack. Chancel, nave, north aisle and vestry, south porch, and west tower.Gothic Revival C13 style.

Three-bay chancel and nave. Buttresses and angle buttresses with offsets. Splayed plinth, sill course with fillet and hood moulds with block stops. Chancel has three-light east window with Geometrical tracery. Cross finial. Two-bay north and three-bay south sides have two-light windows with cusped Y-tracery of alternating designs, hood moulds and block stops; windows become longer moving westwards. North side without buttresses. South porch has doorway of two chamfered orders, the inner with half-shafts and moulded capitals with nail-head and hood mould with head stops. Return sides have trefoiled round arched lights. South door of two chamfered orders, the outer with nook shafts and moulded capitals, and hood mould with foliage stops. Single light to left and two two-light windows to right have Geometrical tracery. Dated foundation stone. Three-bay north aisle has two-light windows with cusped Y-tracery to north and west. Vestry has chamfered arched plank door and east and north trefoiled lights. Stack with round shaft. Roofs of aisle and vestry continue from nave and chancel without a break, but at a different pitch.

Tower of three stages. Massive angle buttresses with three offsets. Double splayed plinth. four-light west window has intersecting tracery. North and south sides have two-light windows with plate tracery. Second stage has trefoiled circle to three sides. North-east stair turret has square first stage with string course, and semi-circular second stage with stone half-conical roof. Slit windows. Bell stage has nook shafts with shaft rings. Two-light bell openings have trefoiled plate tracery and central shaft with stiff leaf capital. String courses and frieze of blind arcading. Broach spire with lucarnes.

Interior: V.C.H. records C14 recess reset beneath chancel north-west window. Grey stone with moulded jambs, cinqfoiled ogee arch with ballflower and hood mould with head stops. North-west arch to organ chamber and vestry. Chancel arch of two chamfered orders and shafts with moulded capitals and bases. Nave has Romanesque style three-bay north arcade with square responds and round pillars, scalloped capitals and moulded bases, incorporating some twelve fragments. North aisle has east arch of c.1300, of two chamfered orders, the inner with detached shafts.

Fittings: C19 marble font. Stained glass: west window has fragments of C15 glass. Monuments: chancel recess has C13 stone coffin lid carved in high relief with effigy of deacon in canopy with tabernacle work.

Listing NGR: SP4114750214