The Church Of St John The Evangelist

KINGS LYNN

610-1/0/10007 BLACKFRIARS ROAD 19-OCT-04 The Church of St John the Evangelist

GV II Church. 1844-6. By Anthony Salvin for David Gurney of North Runcton Hall. Tooled ashlar with stone dressings and with slate roofs in alternating bands of fishscale and plain slates. Stone-coped gables with finials. Buttresses and angle buttresses with set-offs. Plan of chancel with vestries and nave with aisles and north porch and also north aisle and west doors. Early English style. Chancel has triple lancets to east and further lancets to the vestries to north and south. Aisles also have lancets and there are small circular trefoil windows to the 5-bay nave clerestory above. The west end has two lancets within a 5-arched otherwise blind arcade supported on shafts. Angle buttresses rise into square spirelets, the top stages with open shafted lancets. From these buttressess there project westwards pairs of flying buttresses linked to massive free-standing buttresses added in 1889-90 to strengthen the west wall. INTERIOR. Chancel has stained glass of 1846 by W. Wailes and elaborate stone reredos of 1896 below. Further stained glass window in south wall of 1877, possibly by Hardman. Choir stalls of 1946 with poppy head finials to the ends and blind-arcaded fronts. Scissor-brace roof with lower curved braces supported on carved head corbels. Elaborate stone and marble pulpit of 1882 with double blind arcades. Pair of stone reading desks with marble shafts. Brass eagle lectern. Nave has arcades with double-chamfered arches supported on circular piers. Elaborate scissor-brace nave roof similar to chancel and again supported on carved head corbels. Original open nave benches were the first free seating in King's Lynn. In 1980 the western two bays of the nave were partitioned of at the lower level to form separate spaces but upper part of the nave remains open and the west windows are visible. Octagonal stone font has elaborate octagonal open shrine cover with crocketted gablets and pyramidal roof. This fine church by a well-known early Victorian architect was built with the intention that it be a poor man's church. It retains good furnishings including unusual nave benches and it also forms part of a significant group of historic buildings including St. John's Terrace (q.v.) opposite. Source. Pevsner, Nicolaus, and Wilson, Bill, Buildings of England: Norfolk 2: North-West and South, p. 472.