Anglican Church Of St John The Evangelist

St John the Evangelist is an Anglican parish church built in 1831–3 in Gothic style. It was designed and constructed by Robert Studholme, an architect-stonemason of Sutton Coldfield. The church was enlarged by the addition of a chancel, organ chamber and vestries in 1888 by Julius Alfred Chatwin, with further transepts added by Chatwin in 1894.

The church is built from red sandstone with a plastered and painted interior and plain clay tile roofs. It is orientated north-east to south-west, following ritual compass points. The plan is cruciform, comprising a west tower, aisleless nave, chancel, north and south transepts, and an organ chamber and vestries to the north and south of the chancel.

The three-bay nave features buttresses with offsets reflecting the bay structure and is topped by a crenellated parapet. It has single lancet windows with Y-tracery, diamond panes and margin lights under drip moulds. The west tower rises in three stages, with the main entrance in its west side—a pointed-arched doorway with drip mould housing plain double doors. Tower windows are single lancets with diamond panes and margin glazing; the bell-stage has lancet louvers. The tower top carries a crenellated parapet matching the nave. The gabled transepts have diagonal buttresses, a moulded eaves course and raised copings. They contain Decorated stone tracery windows with four lights, cusped heads and trefoils above. The chancel, set slightly below the nave roof level, has diagonal buttresses, a dentil eaves course and pointed-arched windows with drip moulds. The east window has three lights with cusped heads and cinquefoils and a quatrefoil above. The organ chamber is similar in treatment. The lean-to vestries have tripartite windows with Caernarvon-arched heads and a small east doorway with a similar head.

The interior is plastered and painted white, except for the exposed timber roof which features scissor bracing. A canted, late-19th-century storm porch in half-glazed timber sits beneath the tower. A half-spherical alabaster font, raised on a base of clustered columns with foliate capitals, is positioned in the south-west corner of the nave. A hexagonal timber pulpit sits at the foot of the pointed and moulded chancel arch on its north side. The transept arches are segmental with double mouldings.

The north transept houses the Lady Chapel, separated from the body of the church by a glazed and carved pierced timber screen. The chapel contains a carved timber altar and altar back, above which is a large wall-painting of the 1930s depicting the Virgin and Child with a landscape background incorporating Lichfield Cathedral and a zig-zag bridge, a local landmark. A stained glass window depicting the Nativity, designed by Pearce and Cutler and installed in 1938, is set in the chapel. The south transept contains another chapel with a screen to the vestry to its east. Its stained glass window depicting the Epiphany is by Hardman and Co. The chancel arch has a drip mould with head stops and moulded impost terminating in polygonal corbels with angel stops. Pointed-arched windows and doors throughout the chancel all have drip moulds and head stops. The east window depicts the Crucifixion. The altar and altar back are of carved timber. A small doorway to the north gives access to the organ chamber via a canted lobby containing a stained glass window by Thomas William Camm depicting the young St John. The church contains several classical memorial tablets of the mid-19th century and an elaborate Gothic tabernacle memorial to John Gough, the benefactor.

St John the Evangelist was originally built in 1831–3 as a chapel of ease, funded by John Gough who owned the Perry Hall estate, and was intended for use by estate workers. Built in Commissioners' Gothic style, the original church comprised a simple rectangular space with a west gallery and west tower. It was consecrated by the Bishop of Lichfield on 6 August 1833. A new parish of St John was created from the parish of St Mary, Handsworth, in 1862. Through the remainder of the 19th century, the surrounding area's population grew steadily as Birmingham, originally 3 miles from Perry Barr, gradually expanded into new suburbs. The church was enlarged in 1888 by Chatwin's addition of an elevated chancel, north organ chamber and south vestries, with transepts added by Chatwin in 1894. Stained glass was installed in the later 19th century, including work by Thomas William Camm of Smethwick. Further windows by Pearce and Cutler and Hardman and Co were added to the transept chapels in the early 20th century, alongside the unusual mural in the Lady Chapel. In the 1970s, elaborate crocketed pinnacles to the nave and tower were removed on health and safety grounds.