Church Of St John The Evangelist

Church of St John the Evangelist

A large parish church in Newbury, built 1955–7 by S E Dykes-Bower in neo-Romanesque style, with an extension of 1982–3 by R Gradidge in a similar idiom. The church replaces an earlier building by W Butterfield, destroyed by bombing on 10 February 1943.

The exterior is constructed of red brick with horizontal bands of brick in different shades, with clay pantile roofs and diamond leaded windows throughout. The plan comprises a nave of 9 bays with north and south aisles, a sanctuary with ambulatory behind, a vestry to the north and Lady Chapel to the south, and a baptistery to the west with an entrance porch on the south-west. A gallery above the baptistery contains choir stairs and organ, with spiral stairs to the gallery and bell chambers housed in a separate chamber on the north-west. A later parish room adjoins the nave on the north-west.

The south aisle contains 9 bays with circular windows alternating with plain recessed panels with corbelled heads, under a lean-to roof. The south side of the nave has 10 bays with 2-light windows at gallery level, featuring semicircular heads and relieving arches with vertical polychromatic brick infilling and brick mullions. Single-light windows at clerestory level are framed by a moulded string course at the junction with the aisle roof and cill level, with dentilled brick eaves above.

The baptistery's south side features a large central recessed semicircular-headed panel with raised dark brick headers forming a diamond pattern at the upper level, above a 2-light window below. Two large 3-stage buttresses flank the centre section, terminating in promontories with large arched heads and recessed flank walls to oak-planked doors, under corbelled eaves to a transverse gabled roof rising above the nave.

The baptistery's west end contains 3 bays with recessed semicircular-headed panels forming a blank arcade with dark grey projecting header bricks above 2-light windows with segmental heads. Below are circular windows in deeply recessed openings, with a central stone inscription panel reading "AMDG This stone was laid by Her Royal Highness PRINCESS MARGARET 13 April 1955". A small planked door with semicircular head stands to the left, and a deeply recessed window to the right. The north side is similar to the south but with three small rectangular stair windows replacing the porch.

The sanctuary's east end has a gabled roof with parapet. Semi-octagonal projections flank the centre—the Lady Chapel to the left and the vestry to the right. The five-bay centre section has recessed brick panels with three circular windows to the ambulatory and a small door on the right. Three-stage buttresses rise between the recessed panels to the impost level of 2-light windows with pointed heads within semicircular beaded openings, with three semicircular-headed windows above ambulatory level.

The Lady Chapel's south side contains two 2-light windows with segmental heads of tile slips, with a wooden cross bearing a carved wooden figure of Christ at the centre. The south wall of the sanctuary has a steeply pitched lean-to roof with two large 2-light windows with pointed heads in recessed panels with tile-slip semicircular heads and spandrels, and brick quoins, beneath a coped gable.

The interior is constructed entirely of brick. The nine-bay arcades feature semicircular arches to the aisles, supported on square piers with chamfered edges and moulded stone bases and capitals. Semicircular brick shafts spring alternately from the bases of the piers and from the abacus level of the pier heads, rising to moulded stone corbelled heads carrying shaped wooden brackets to concealed roof trusses. The ceilings to the nave and sanctuary are painted in geometrical designs on wooden boards. A brick altar stands beneath a painted tester depicting the Dove of Peace with tongues of fire denoting the Holy Spirit. Stained windows in the sanctuary were created by A E Buss of Goddard and Gibbs.