Church Of St John

The Church of St John, also known as St John the Apostle, is a parish church largely dating from 1832, attributed to a member of the Blomfield family of architects and clergymen, commissioned by Joseph Baxendale. A chancel and west porches were added in 1879-80 by James Brooks for William Passmore, and a vestry was added in 1897. The building is constructed of brick with slate roofs.

The church comprises an aisleless nave, a chancel, a sanctuary, and a vestry. The nave has polygonal corner turrets, the south of which retains ogee domes. The west window has three stepped lancet lights. The north and south flanks of the nave have five bays, separated by flat, plain buttresses with set-offs. Four windows with three lights and plate tracery are set under hoods with label stops. Gabled porches are located on the west bays, each with a doorway and a three-light transomed window on the east face; the other sides have no openings. A timber west bell turret was removed in 1996. The chancel east end features three lancets with hoodmoulds, and flat corner buttresses. The gabled north vestry has lancet windows. There are two chimney stacks.

Inside, a string course runs under the side windows of the nave and above the arched doorways of the porches. The nave roof consists of ten trusses with scissor braces, principals, and two tiers of purlins. A pointed chancel arch has undercut mouldings on corbels with stiff-leaf foliage. The chancel features an arch leading into the sanctuary on the north side and a former external window looking into the sanctuary. An organ by G. M. Holdich, dating from circa 1860, is located on the south side, accessed through a shouldered doorway in the east wall of the nave. A balancing doorway leads north into the sanctuary. The chancel roof is of boarded scissor-braced trusses. Other interior features include a four-sided pulpit with trefoiled arched openings, fourteen plaster Stations of the Cross, a drum font with fleur-de-lys at the base and a fluted bowl.

The east window contains a Crucifixion by William Morris & Co. (1880), featuring a pelican design by Philip Webb. The west window depicts nine scenes from the Life of Christ (1883) by Lavers and Westlake.

The west end of the church contains a family vault belonging to Joseph Baxendale, enclosed by iron spear-headed railings with square standards topped with urn finials, and an inscription panel fixed to the church wall.

The church is listed as a good and complete example of an early nineteenth-century Gothic design. Charles Blomfield, Bishop of London, was a supporter of the church's foundation, and some sources suggest he may have been the architect.