Church of St John the Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

This parish church dates to around 1337 and stands as a Grade I listed building. The spire was restored in 1757–8 following severe damage from a thunderstorm. The entire structure underwent comprehensive restoration between 1852 and 1854 by the architect G.E. Street.

The building is constructed of flint with Bath stone quoins; the chancel is built of knapped flint and the spire of stone. The roofs are old tile with coped gables.

The church follows a cruciform plan with a three-bay chancel, a central tower surmounted by a tall spire, north and south transepts of one bay each, and two-bay north and south porches. The architectural style is Decorated. A moulded string runs around the building at window cill level, with buttresses on all sides, angled diagonally to the porches.

Windows feature flowing tracery. Most are of two lights, except the east window which has five lights, the three-light windows in the north and south transepts, and the west end of the nave which displays geometrical tracery.

The tower and spire comprise two stages separated by a moulded string and topped with an embattled parapet. Decayed head-gargoyles mark the angles. The ringing chamber has two small trefoiled openings on the south; the bell-chamber contains a pointed window of two trefoiled lights with quatrefoil tracery in each wall. An octagonal stair turret stands at the north-west corner. The octagonal spire is crowned with a weathercock and features large stone lucarnes at the foot in its cardinal faces.

The chancel's north wall contains two windows with a blocked trefoiled-headed doorway to their left. The east wall has a five-light window; the south wall has three windows. The north transept contains a three-light window on its north wall and two-light windows in the east and west walls. The south transept, now used as a vestry and organ chamber, has similar windows. The nave's north and south fronts are similar, each containing two two-light windows with an entrance porch between them. Both porches have pointed openings with continuously moulded jambs in their gable walls and small ogee-trefoiled lights in the side walls. The nave's western end contains a larger doorway with similar detailing and a three-light window above.

The interior is plastered. The roof structure features collar purlin roofs with plain crown posts braced four ways; the chancel has a barrel roof. On the chancel's south wall is a piscina with a credence bracket and cinquefoiled basin, set in range with three sedilia. The sedilia have trefoiled ogee heads with cusped panels in the spandrels; their backs are panelled and carry up into mock vaulted heads. Another piscina with a trefoiled-ogee head stands in the south transept, with a cinquefoiled basin above a credence shelf. A 14th-century octagonal font features crocketed and pinnacled buttresses at the angles, panelled sides with trefoiled-ogee heads having crocketed labels surmounted by carved finials. A 19th-century pulpit is also present.

Monuments include a fine 14th-century double tomb recess spanning the entire north wall of the north transept, cut in chalk and stone with a panelled base and embattled cornice. Against the north wall of the chancel is a long alabaster box in the shape of a coffin containing the carved figure of a man in a long garment with hands in prayer. Two brass inscriptions in Latin appear on top.

The floor contains several brasses. A large late 14th-century example in the nave shows a priest and a layman in full length beneath two crocketed and finialled canopies with pinnacled buttresses on either side. The north transept floor holds the remains of a similar-dated large brass depicting a woman in a loose flowing dress. Also in the north transept floor is a brass inscribed in black letters to Richard Gyll, above which stands a figure of a man in prayer wearing early 16th-century armour. Another brass commemorates Thames Noke, who died in 1567, and his three wives, with an inscription in black letters.

Some original glass survives in the north-east window of the chancel. The west window of the chancel contains a shield on a background of black and white flowered glass. The head of the west window in the north transept is original and contains a quartered shield of France and England. The east window is by Hardman.