Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a parish church dating to 1878-9, designed by Hopkins on the site of an earlier medieval church. It is constructed of roughly faced, snecked rubble with ashlar dressings and tiled roofs. The building comprises a two-bay chancel with a gabled vestry to the south, a three-bay nave with a clerestory and aisles to both the north and south, a timber south porch, and a west tower. The church is built in the Decorated style.

The chancel features two-light windows and a three-light east window. The vestry has a shouldered chimney and an entrance to the south. The nave has three-light windows and quatrefoil-in-circle clerestory windows. A large, gabled porch with carved infill panels and quatrefoil pierced bargeboards projects to the south. The north side of the nave incorporates a transept under a catslide roof with three north lancets and a two-light east window.

The tower is roughly three stages high and features a quatrefoil-tracery panelled plinth to the lower stage and three strings. The west doorway has sandstone nook-shafts with carved foliage capitals. The middle stage has a dagger-lobed quatrefoil light on each face, with an imbricated frieze just below the belfry stage. Large, paired bell-chamber lights have red sandstone nook-shafts. The parapet is topped with crocketted corner finials and a pyramidal tiled roof supporting a crocketted finial with a cockerel weathervane.

Inside, the nave has a wagon roof. The chancel features four principal rafters supported on foliated corbels. The south aisle has six arch-braces with quatrefoil pierced decoration and foliated corbels. The chancel arch has a column cluster base with foliated capitals, supported on corbels enriched with birds, fruit, and flowers. A C14 arched recess in the north wall contains a brass to Thomas Littleton, a former rector who died in 1666; it bears a coat of arms above its inscription. A piscina is set into the south wall, with a cusped head and a label with ballflower decoration. The east window has red sandstone nook-shafts with foliated capitals. The Norman font has a chamfered base and lozenge ornament. Features of the interior include a C19 pulpit with C17 arcaded panels carved with arabesque work, C19 altar rails, C19 pews, and a parish chest in the south aisle. Numerous C18 and C19 wall memorials are located in the base of the west tower. The chancel windows contain stained glass by Kempe, dating to 1900-5.