Parish Church Of St John The Baptist

The Parish Church of St John the Baptist is a Grade I listed building located in Holywell-cum-Needingworth. The church features a nave, chancel, and north aisle dating from the 13th century, with the south aisle added around 1300. A west tower was constructed in 1547 by the mason Thomas Roper. The south porch was added during a restoration in 1862, while the tower was restored in 1915 and the vestry rebuilt in 1919. The church is built from stone and pebble-rubble, incorporating Barnack stone and some reused materials in the tower, possibly sourced from Ramsey Abbey. The roofs are covered with plain tiles and slate.

The tower consists of three stages, featuring a moulded plinth and an embattled parapet adorned with crocketed pinnacles at the corners. It has octagonal angle buttresses that become diagonal above the first stage. The west doorway has an early 16th-century square-headed arch with moulded, shafted jambs and quatrefoils in the spandrels. The west window also has a square-headed arch with three trefoiled lights. The belfry contains three reused 14th-century windows, each with two trefoiled lights. The nave clerestory includes three early 16th-century windows, each with two cinquefoil lights. There is an early 14th-century doorway to the south aisle featuring jambs and a two-centred arch of two hollow, chamfered orders, a moulded label, and damaged head-stops. The chancel has two original lancet-light windows with moulded labels and mask stops, and the east window was inserted by Nicholson in 1931.

Inside, the north nave arcade consists of three bays with two-centred arches of two chamfered orders, supported by octagonal piers with moulded capitals and bases. There is a similar but later three-bay arcade to the south. The tower arch has been rebuilt, featuring two-centred outer orders that are richly moulded with bosses and rosettes in hollows. The chancel arch is also two-centred, with semi-octagonal responds from the early 14th century. The roofs are modern, and only two of the eight carved figures from around 1500, recorded by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in 1926, can be seen attached to the chancel screen. The chancel contains a locker and piscina from the 13th century, as well as a font on a late 13th-century octagonal stem with four round shafts. A modern chancel screen was created by Allens of Brampton, designed by Inskip Ladds.