Church of St John and associated boundary walls and gates

This is a parish church originally built in the 13th century as the chapel of the Hospital of St John. It was rebuilt in the 14th century, with a tower added around 1500. James Tacy Wing restored the building in 1869–1870, and vestries were added in 1889 and 1910.

The church has rubble stone walls with stone dressings and plastered interiors. The roof is covered with 19th-century clay tiles and terracotta ridge tiles.

Layout

The church follows a long rectangular plan on an east-west axis. From west to east, it consists of a square-plan tower, a nave, and a chancel in two stages. An organ chamber and vestries are attached to the north side of the chancel.

Exterior

The nave, chancel, organ chamber, and vestries each have pitched roofs with 19th-century clay tiles, various terracotta ridge tiles, and stone coping between sections. The walls are rubble stone with worked dressings.

The nave is the earliest surviving part of the church, to which the chancel was probably added in the 14th century. Measuring approximately 15 metres long and 5 metres wide, the nave has two stepped buttresses on its south elevation, which appear to have been added during the 19th-century restoration by James Tacy Wing (1869–1870, unless otherwise stated). Six 19th-century lancet windows illuminate the nave—three on each of the north and south walls—with ashlar reveals and pointed hood mouldings on figurative corbels. Between the two westernmost lights on the south elevation, the trace of a former window opening is visible. Below the west window of the south elevation is what appears to be the line of a former doorway.

Unusually, the chancel (approximately 15 metres long and 6.5 metres wide) is longer and wider than the nave. It is defined by two stages. The western part of the chancel, closest to the nave, has two 19th-century lancets on its south wall—the western window occupying an earlier, larger blocked opening—and a gabled organ chamber dated 1869 on its north wall. The eastern part of the chancel has a two-light tracery window on the south elevation, a 19th-century window on the east elevation, and vestries on the north elevation (added in 1889 and enlarged in 1910).

The south elevation of the chancel and the south end of the east elevation retain a continuous string course at varying heights (broken by the 19th-century lancets), which appears to be original. The south-east corner of the chancel retains an original but restored diagonal buttress in two stages, and a similar buttress at a right angle at the north end of the east elevation.

The 19th-century east window has three lancets set within the jambs of an earlier two-centred arch (visible on the interior), with a 19th-century hood mould on carved figurative corbels. Above the window, a 19th-century carved stone cross adorns the apex of the east gable.

The vestry on the north elevation of the chancel is constructed of coursed stone with one pointed window under a hood mould. When the vestry was extended in 1910, a pointed door was added to the west of the 19th-century window, and a pair of windows and a lancet window were added to the east of the 19th-century window, each with a carved hood mould.

The Perpendicular west tower, built around 1500, is roughly square in plan and measures approximately 3 metres in width and 18 metres in height. It stands on a panelled plinth incorporating a 19th-century band of quatrefoil ornament, and is divided externally into three stages by string courses, crowned by a crenelated parapet, all restored by Wing (1869–1870). The western corners have diagonal buttresses in five stages, which stop short of the bell chamber. Buttresses at right angles to the north and south walls strengthen the north-east corner of the tower and the south-east corner of the stair turret.

The west doorway was restored in the 19th century. It has a four-centred arch within a flat-arched surround, with floral mouldings to the spandrels, and wrought-iron strap hinges to the timber-panelled door. Above the door, a 15th-century pointed window illuminates the gallery, having three cinquefoil-headed lights and one quatrefoil light under a plain hood mould. Above the west window and below the string course marking the bell chamber is a small carved stone panel of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), and above this, the carved figure of St John the Baptist in a hood-moulded niche, both by Harry Hems of Exeter (1869–1870). Each elevation of the bell chamber has a pointed arch under a hood mould, containing two cinquefoil-headed lights under a quatrefoil light. At each corner of the string below the crenelated parapet are carved grotesque heads.

Interior

The interior walls are plastered with exposed stone window surrounds. The nave has a 19th-century continuous sill course, and the chancel has a 19th-century string course at varying levels.

The nave has a 19th-century king-post roof on arched braces, with the principals supported on stone corbels. It is without aisles and measures approximately 15 metres in length and 5 metres in width. The stone window surrounds are exposed, and the western window of the north wall contains a margined stained glass window (possibly early 19th century) depicting the baptism of Christ by St John. Polychromatic floor tiles and plain pews were introduced to the nave in the late 19th century.

Between the nave and chancel, a 19th-century pointed arch springs from engaged octagonal corbels.

The long chancel measures approximately 15 metres in length and 6 metres in width, being unusually larger than the nave. It is divided into two spaces. The western section, closest to the nave, has a 19th-century canted timber-boarded ceiling decorated with red and gold painted frames and foliated bosses. The east section has a 19th-century hammerbeam roof supported on foliated stone corbels.

The western section of the chancel has a late 19th-century organ by Hele & Co on its north wall, and a blocked 14th-century pointed-arch doorway to the east of the organ. The south wall has two exposed 19th-century window surrounds, both containing stained glass: the eastern window depicts St John the Baptist (1913), and the western window has older latticed leadwork with a stained glass quatrefoil to the apex (possibly early 19th century). The 19th-century window surround of the western window is framed by a larger blocked window opening (most likely 14th century).

The west and east sections of the chancel are divided by a 19th-century pointed arch of two orders with moulded capitals and bases, flanked to each side by a lower 19th-century pointed arch.

The eastern section of the chancel has a central 19th-century three-light stained-glass window to the east wall over a 19th-century wall painting and tiled dais. During the restoration of 1869–1870, a 14th-century piscina and three sedilia were revealed on the south wall of the chancel. The sedilia are separated from one another and from the piscina by small attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases supporting trefoil-headed ogee arches, the whole in a moulded rectangular frame, which drops to a carved head stop at the east end, immediately above the capital of the east respond to the piscina. The spandrels are carved with an irregular pattern of trefoils and quatrefoils. The seats of the sedilia are about 0.5 metres lower than the piscina. The base of the piscina, which has a central circular stem surrounded by four moulded shafts, appears to have been adapted as a base for a baptismal font in the 20th century (after the Victoria County History, 1912), and now stands in the north-west corner of the nave.

Above the sedilia is a 19th-century two-light window with stained glass depicting the Crucifixion and Ascension, the sill of which appears to date from the 14th century. The north wall has a late 19th-century pointed arch to the vestries (built 1889 and extended 1910).

The west tower measures approximately 3.5 metres in length and 3 metres in width, and is divided from the nave by a 19th-century pointed arch with engaged octagonal pilasters. The ground floor of the tower has 19th-century timber panelling and a glazed pointed-arch door to the nave, with six margined sidelights to either side, filling the width of the arch. The south-east corner of the tower has an original pointed door surround and door to the stair turret to the bell chamber. From the south-west corner, a 19th-century sliding door provides access to stairs to the gallery, which has reclaimed theatre seating and coloured margins to the 19th-century west window.

Boundary Walls and Gates

The church is bounded to the west at St John's Street by a rubble stone wall approximately 32 metres in length, which adjoins the former Hospital of St John to the north. The rubble wall has cut stone coping, central yellow-brick gate piers, double-leaf cast-iron gates, and a scrolled wrought-iron overthrow incorporating a square cast-iron lantern.

At the south end of the stone wall, a red brick wall extends east on a rubble stone plinth, enclosing the south-west section of the graveyard, and runs north towards the buttress between the nave and chancel.

The cloister, or that part of it which joined the hospital to the church, was in existence as late as 1760. Evidence of two enclosures survive north-west of the church in the form of rubble stone walls, with some red brick piers.