Church of St John the Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

Parish church, now deconsecrated and used as a store. Early to mid 14th century, restored in 1835 and again in 1866, possibly by G.E Street; interior altered around 1975 after deconsecration. Built in sandstone ashlar with slate roofs featuring parapets at the gable ends. The church comprises a small west tower, three-bay nave, and two-bay chancel with a north vestry. It is built in the Decorated style.

The west tower dates to the mid-19th century. The ground floor forms the main entrance porch and rises in two stages. The lower stage has offsets and a string above a continuous battered plinth. A pointed west entrance archway with a single roll moulding opens into a porch with a quadripartite vault featuring an ornamental boss. The door into the nave has a simple pointed-arched chamfered surround. Above the entrance is a blind two-light window with a hood mould and returns; the north and south side elevations each have a lancet with a smaller lancet above. The belfry stage is gabled. The west elevation features a pair of louvred lancets with single lancets in the side elevations, all having hood moulds with returns. The gables have parapets set above a square fleuron frieze and with moulded copings. At each corner and at the apex of the west gable is a small turret corbelled out from the wall and enriched with cusped pointed-arched panels, except for the turret at the west gable apex, which has a central cusped pointed-arched opening and is surmounted by a broken finial.

The nave consists of three bays. Early 14th-century stonework is evident at the base, in the windows, and in the square fleuron eaves frieze. A sill string continues around the east end buttresses and west end. The angled buttresses all have offsets and gables, with an additional finialed gable at mid-height featuring cusped blind tracery. Both north and south elevations have three two-light windows with varying tracery designs and flattened ogee hood moulds with foliated finials, which interrupt the eaves frieze. The north-west window is probably a 19th-century copy added when the north doorway was blocked.

The chancel comprises two bays. The frieze and sill string continue from the nave. The east end was refaced in the 19th century with angled corner buttresses similar to those on the nave. The three-light east window has a hood mould with label stops carved as grotesque heads. The two south windows and the north-east window are all similar to those in the nave. To the left of the south-west window, immediately beneath the sill string, is a small square blocked window. The north vestry is a 19th-century addition projecting from the north-west bay. The north gable end has a three-light square-headed window with hood mould and returns. On the east side elevation, a flight of four steps with simple cast iron railings leads up to a central pointed-arched doorway.

Interior

The interior was altered in the late 1970s after the church was deconsecrated, when pews and the altar table were removed. A pointed chancel arch has a flattened ogee hood mould with foliated finial. The roofs are 19th-century, with cusped arch-braced collar trusses. Windows are similarly detailed to the chancel arch and have grotesque head label stops. Flanking the east window are narrow semi-circular headed niches with crocketted and finialed gabled canopies and slender pinnacled buttresses. The piscina has a cusped ogee arch, and in the north-east corner is an arched recess. The nave retains a west gallery with cusped pointed arcading and a 19th-century octagonal stone front, together with the pulpit.

Memorials and Monuments

Between the east end and the central window of the north nave wall is a large monument, probably dating to the 14th century. Beneath it, within a cusped wide pointed-arched recess, is a 19th-century chest tomb to John Howard Galton, died 1862, set behind ornate cast iron railings. Above the finialed hood mould to the recess is a niche for a figure with a crocketted gabled and pinnacled head, enclosed within an outer crocketted pointed hood mould with blind tracery below. The niche is flanked by two similar niches. The chancel contains several 18th-century and 19th-century memorials commemorating members of the Galton and Amphlett families.

Glass

The chancel windows and the east and central windows of the south nave wall are probably by Hardman and include some 14th-century glass.

A small church with some fine Decorated detailing; the elaborate tomb recess in the north nave wall is of particular interest.