Church Of St John The Baptist

CHURCH OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST, STRENSHAM

A parish church of the 14th and 15th centuries, built close to Strensham Castle (destroyed in the Civil War) and a village that was deserted in the 14th century. The church has a 14th-century core of nave and chancel, to which the tower was added in the late 14th or 15th century. Nave windows were altered in the 15th century, and the vestry was added in the early 19th century. Strensham was the seat of the Russell family from the 13th century until 1705, a connection reflected in the church's outstanding collection of funeral monuments. The church is now redundant and has been in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust since 1991.

The exterior is rendered lime over grey lias rubble stone and brick (to the vestry), beneath tile roofs, and is mainly in Tudor-Gothic style. The plan comprises a nave, lower and narrower chancel, west tower, south porch and north vestry.

The chancel east wall has red-sandstone angle buttresses and a small buttress below a 3-light east window with trefoil-headed lights. The south wall has a chamfered priest's doorway and a straight-headed 2-light window, possibly a bequest of 1405 from Sir John Russell. A shallow projection was built to accommodate the Russell tomb. The north wall contains a cusped 1-light window, blocked internally by a monument, above which the gabled roof of this monument projects through the roof slope. The north vestry has an embattled parapet.

The nave has angle buttresses. Both north and south nave walls have a single-light window and two square-headed 2-light windows. The south porch has a double-chamfered entrance with sundial above, and a chamfered south nave doorway with a stoup on its right-hand side. On the north side is a plain square-headed doorway. The 3-stage tower has an embattled parapet, diagonal west buttresses and a south-east stair turret. In the west wall is a moulded doorway surround with a weathered stoup to its right, and a 3-light Perpendicular window. The upper stage has 2-light bell openings.

The interior is of great architectural interest. The 14th-century chancel arch is double-chamfered with inner order on corbels. The chancel has a plastered segmental barrel ceiling in which ashlar pieces are visible that are probably medieval, suggesting that the plaster covers a medieval roof. The nave has a wide plastered barrel ceiling, probably of the 15th century, divided into panels by moulded ribs and wall plate, with three richly moulded tie beams, one of which has an angel boss attached to its soffit. A blocked chamfered tower arch is visible. Walls are plastered. The nave floor is paved with worn 15th-century tiles of two colours, with bricks at the west end and raised wood floors below the benches. The chancel and sanctuary are stone-paved.

The church contains a remarkable collection of fittings and monuments spanning several centuries. The west gallery is constructed from parts of a 16th-century rood screen of unknown provenance. It is carried on posts incorporating elaborate nodding ogee canopies over niches and carved foliage brackets. The front consists of painted panels showing a central figure of Christ flanked by Apostles, saints and church figures, derived from the dado of a rood screen—an uncommon feature in Worcestershire—and restored in 1875. The font is a 19th-century neo-Norman tub font decorated with blind round arches. A pulpit and attached reading desk of around 1700 form a fine ensemble in front of a narrow, deeply splayed doorway to the vestry.

The benches are of the mid-16th century, decorated with linenfold panelling framed by timber buttresses. The seats have been lowered but appear to be original. The blocks of benches east of the entrance also have linenfold panels set against the wall above a plainer wainscot. At the east end of the nave is a large box pew with sunk panels and doors fitted with cockshead hinges.

A 19th-century Royal Arms of George III and hatchments of John Taylor (died 1848) and James Taylor (died 1852) are fixed above the chancel arch. Boards bearing the Ten Commandments, Lord's Prayer and Apostle's Creed are mounted on the west wall.

The chancel contains an outstanding collection of monuments to the Russell family and others, spanning from the late 14th century onwards. These include brasses to Sir Robert Russell (died 1390), Sir John Russell (died 1405), Robert Russell (died 1502) and Thomas Russell (died 1556). A large Jacobean monument to Sir Thomas Russell (died 1632) and his wife (died 1618), possibly by Samuel Baldwin, features recumbent effigies under a round-headed arch with a coffin in a niche below, surmounted by a huge crest with armorial bearings. The figures are well preserved and retain painted and gilded decoration. An oval wall plaque commemorates Sir William Russell (died 1669) and his wife Frances. A grand Baroque wall monument to Sir Francis Russell (died 1705) and his wife, by Edward Stanton, shows the deceased reclining with one elbow on a chest, with a female figure kneeling at his head, with inscriptions both on the chest and behind, framed by an open pediment. A monument to Anne, Lady Gyse (died 1734), features a reclining effigy over a sarcophagus with a superstructure so tall that the chancel roof was raised under a gable to accommodate it. A neo-classical wall tablet to Sir Charles Trubshaw Withers (died 1804) is on the chancel wall. A memorial to the satirist Samuel Butler (1612–80), in Gothic style and dating from the 1830s by Robert Sshton Junior, commemorates Butler, author of 'Hudibras', who was born here.

The stained glass includes the east window by Cox, Son and Buckly, showing the Good Shepherd (1890), and a south chancel window by Florence Camm for Thomas William Camm of Smethwick, showing the Good Samaritan (1917). A nave Ascension window is by Curtis, Ward and Hughes (1903).