Church of St John the Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

Parish church, situated on the north side of Main Street, Beckford. The building dates from around 1130, constructed on an earlier site, and was substantially altered and extended in the early 14th century, early 15th century, and early and late 17th century, with mid-19th-century restoration work undertaken.

The church is built of partly coursed limestone rubble and limestone ashlar with ashlar dressings. The roofs are stone-tiled, laid in diminishing courses with gable-end parapets and cross finials. The plan comprises a three-bay nave with opposing doorways and a south porch, a central tower, and a three-bay chancel with a north vestry.

The nave dates from around 1130. The west end features an intermediate and eaves-level band, interrupted by a large 15th-century window of five lights with a hoodmould and decoratively carved stops. Surviving on either side of this window are the jambs of two original round-headed west windows. The north elevation contains an easternmost two-light 14th-century window with plate tracery and an original round-headed deeply splayed light at the western end. The north doorway is blocked and altered, but above it survives a tympanum representing the Harrowing of Hell, standing above a lintel enriched with a foliated frieze. The archway features a cable moulding and shafts with carved heads on the capitals, which serve as corbels to the lintel. The south elevation has similar window openings and also a 15th-century window of three lights.

The south porch dates from the 15th century. It is gabled with an end parapet, at the apex of which stands a cube-shaped sundial with a ball finial. There are small diagonal corner buttresses, a basket archway of two chamfered orders with a square head and hoodmould, two rectangular openings (one above the other) in each side elevation, and stone benches within. The south doorway comprises four orders enriched mainly with cable and chevron mouldings; the two middle orders are shafted with decorated scalloped capitals. A holy water stoup projects between the two central shafts on the east side. The sculptured tympanum is believed to illustrate animal creation adoring the Trinity, standing on a richly carved lintel supported on head corbels.

The central tower rises in four stages with strings. The lower stage is offset and was formerly part of the 12th-century chancel. In the early 14th century, a three-stage tower was built with a spire, and relieving arches were inserted in the north and south walls. This spire was replaced by the belfry stage in 1622. Nineteenth-century buttresses with offsets exist beneath the belfry stage; the north-west buttress is replaced by a shallow stair turret. The lower stage has a small 12th-century window on each side and a doorway with a four-centred head in the south elevation. The second stage features a 14th-century lancet to the north and south, and at the south-east corner are carved a pair of heads. The third stage has two large lancets to the north, south and east. The belfry stage features three-light louvred bell-chamber openings with a continuous sill string and hoodmoulds; beneath the south opening is a clock face. Above is an embattled parapet with gargoyles at the base of each corner and crocketted corner pinnacles.

The chancel dates from the early 14th century. The east window has plate tracery with three lancets and two roundels in the spandrels. The side elevations originally had two two-light windows and a single-light window; the south-west window was lengthened and bricked in during the 17th century, and the north-east window was blocked in 1413 when a chapel was added for Sir John Cheyne. The chapel was extended around 1686-87 to form a vestry. This is gabled with end parapets, has a two-light mullioned east window, an east doorway and a single-light west window. A lean-to north addition with a catslide roof and two-light mullioned windows at both east and west ends is attached.

Interior

The 12th-century west tower arch, a former chancel arch, comprises three enriched and shafted orders. Carved into the central north shaft is a centaur, two human heads set horizontally, and a human head on a spur at the base. The south shafts were mutilated when a three-decker pulpit was installed. Two blocked doorways to the north of the arch gave access to the rood loft. The remaining tower arches are chamfered and pointed. Embedded in the south nave wall is an attached 12th-century shaft, probably from a former window.

The nave features a 15th-century waggon roof with four moulded and arch-braced tie beams. The chancel has two intermediate queen-post roof trusses. A pointed arched piscina is present, along with a 17th-century altar table and a chancel screen of 1915 incorporating part of a 17th-century screen.

The octagonal font dates from the 15th century and has a panelled bowl and stem with quatrefoil tracery on the bowl. The nave also contains 15th-century corbels and a wall painting fragment. Nineteenth-century fittings include a pulpit and pews; the pews incorporate earlier woodwork.

Memorials include a memorial to Richard Wakeman dated 1662 in the chancel, featuring an open pediment, coat of arms and unusually shaped pilasters, and a mid-19th-century sarcophagus relief. The tower contains several mid-19th-century memorials to Archdeacon John Timbrill and his family, and there are five early and mid-19th-century ledger slabs in the nave.

A panel of Flemish glass is present in the 12th-century north nave window.

This is a relatively large medieval parish church of considerable architectural interest, notable for its fine 15th-century nave roof and impressive and unusual 12th-century detailing to its west tower arch and north and south doorways.