Church Of St John The Evangelist

The Church of St John the Evangelist at Charlton is a parish church of 1872, created from the adaptive conversion of an old barn. It is built of coursed grey lias rubble with buff limestone quoins and dressings, beneath a tile roof.

The church follows a simple rectangular plan comprising a nave and chancel under a single roof, with an added west porch. The architectural style is Gothic, expressed through windows with hood moulds and polychrome stone arches. The three-light east window features plate tracery and a sill band, above which sits a traceried round window. The north and south walls are lit by four cusped windows and two-light sanctuary windows with plate tracery. The jambs of the former wagon bay of the barn remain visible in both the north and south walls, serving as a reminder of the building's agricultural origins. Above the porch is a round clock set in a stone frame, and the stump of a former west bellcote. The porch entrance is distinguished by nook shafts and a polychrome arch below a niche containing a figure of St John. The porch side walls have two-light plate-tracery windows.

The interior presents a unified nave and chancel space. The roof is a five-bay queen-post construction on corbelled brackets, with X-shaped braces between posts and outer raked struts, and two tiers of windbraces. The easternmost truss rises from angel corbels and retains stencilled decoration on boarding behind the purlins. A brattished fascia at wall-plate level is pierced with quatrefoils. The walls are plastered with boarded wainscot. Nineteenth-century floor tiles by Godwin of Lugwardine are laid throughout, with raised wood floors below the benches.

The principal furnishings include a faceted west gallery on iron posts, with the central facet projecting on brackets. The open arcaded gallery front features trefoil arches on broad columns with foliage capitals, accessed by a steep closed-string stair in the nave. A small octagonal font stands on a round marble stem. The large round stone pulpit is decorated with a roundel bearing the IHS monogram. Nave benches have shouldered ends and diagonal boarding to the backs, whilst choir benches are similar but feature open arcading to the fronts. A communion rail on iron standards with painted decorative brackets completes the furniture. The east window depicts the Ascension, with Evangelists shown in the north and south sanctuary windows—all created by Ward and Hughes in 1872. A First World War memorial tablet with a simple pediment is also present.

The church was originally constructed as a barn and was converted to ecclesiastical use in 1872 at the expense of Henry Workman, who is said to have undertaken the architectural work himself. He also built the adjacent school. An interior photograph dated 1877 shows the church substantially as it appears today, except for stencilled foliage patterns that once decorated the east wall. The sculptor William Forsyth is said to have been involved with the church and presumably carved the pulpit. The building was damaged by fire in 1985, likely when the bellcote was lost.