Church of St John

Church of St John

Anglican church, built as a chapel of ease between 1875 and 1876 to architectural designs by John Drayton Wyatt.

The church is roughly T-shaped on plan, comprising a four-bay nave and three-bay chancel laid out on an east-west axis, a porch near the west end of the south elevation, and a single-bay south transept with a small lean-to vestry to its east side.

The walls are constructed of flint with continuous polychromatic red- and gault-brick bands at sill and springing levels, with alternating brick voussoirs to openings throughout. The elevations and corners have shallow buttresses with stone dressings and gault-brick quoins. The roofs are pitched and slate covered, with a band of lighter-coloured slate around mid-way down each slope, timber bargeboards and wrought-iron apex crosses; the roof of the chancel is slightly lower than the nave. A square-plan bellcote with a shingle-covered spire and wrought-iron apex cross sits at the west end of the nave roof; the bellcote has timber-framed walls with timber louvres and rendered panels.

The nave and chancel have single and paired lancet windows with alternating voussoirs; some pairs have simple stone cusping. The west gable features a pair of tall lancet windows and a round window above. The east gable has a three-light window with moulded stone tracery comprising trefoil-cusped lights, an octofoil circle over, and hood mould with figurehead stops; below the window the sill band steps down to meet the flanking buttresses. The apex of the east gable features a red-brick cross set in the flint walling and an iron cross finial over.

A porch projects from the west end of the south elevation of the nave, with a slate-covered roof and decorative bargeboard. It has open timber construction on a low chamfered-brick plinth, a pointed-arched door surround with polychromatic voussoirs, and a door with decorative iron strap hinges. The south transept has a circular window of four roundels to the centre of its south gable and a pair of lancet windows to its west side. The lean-to vestry on the east side of the transept has a small flat-arched two-light window on its east side and a pointed-arched door to the south with decorative iron strap hinges.

The interior of the nave is plastered with two red-brick bands and dressings (painted white but still discernible). The roofs of the nave, chancel and transept are open with exposed scissor-braces. The westernmost end of the nave has a substantial wooden arch on shaped stone corbels, and the chancel has two such substantial arches on corbels.

The floor of the nave has polychromatic encaustic tiling to the central walkway and wooden floors to the pew sections; the chancel has decorative encaustic floor tiles. The pointed openings to the chancel and transept each have two chamfered arches of polychromatic brickwork with intermittent stone blocks, now painted. The inner chancel arch terminates with a colonette over a moulded and carved stone corbel; the outer arch has a hood mould and carved figurehead stop. The inner arch of the transept rests on a carved pointed stone corbel. The pointed arch of the east window has a hood moulding terminating in carved figureheads and a moulded chamfered architrave resting on slender engaged columns.

The east side of the transept has a pointed-arch door to a small vestry, which also has a door from the south side of the chancel and a door to the south of the church. All three doors are ledged with diagonal cross braces and retain original decorative door furniture. The vestry has an encaustic tiled floor. The main porch door is also ledged with diagonal cross braces and retains original decorative door furniture.

Inside the entrance stands an octagonal stone font, now painted, probably designed by J D Wyatt. It features a substantial basin with carved roundels to four faces, set on clustered colonettes and a stepped base.

An early 17th-century Jacobean pulpit stands in the north-east corner of the nave. It is of carved and panelled oak with carved scrolled brackets over a moulded stone base (now painted). The pulpit was removed from the parish church of St Mary, Mildenhall when it was replaced with a new one designed by Wyatt during the church's restoration in 1875-6; its sounding board has remained at St Mary's.

The wooden altar was crafted and presented by Mrs Clarke of Beck Row. It is freestanding with a frame of two trefoil arches to the front. The altar rails of coloured and gilded metal and oak, and the chancel stalls of simple Gothic Revival design, are all of 1876.