Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

This brick church at Smallhythe was completely rebuilt in 1516-17 following a devastating fire that destroyed the town in 1514. The chancel was reroofed in the 18th century, and the whole building underwent restoration in the 19th century, when the window tracery was renewed. The stone east window dates from 1884.

The church is constructed of 16th-century brick in English bond, with stone tracery and dressings. The roof is tiled, with a small timber bell cot. The plan consists of an unaisled nave and chancel without structural division, with a western porch and small timber bell cot over the nave's west end.

Externally, the nave and chancel are continuous, with crowstepped gables at the east and west ends. Diagonal buttresses with offsets stand at the corners, and a pair of offset buttresses flank each side. The 19th-century east window has stone tracery in Perpendicular style, set within the blocked four-centred opening of the original 16th-century window.

The nave and chancel north and south windows display restored Flamboyant brick tracery with mouchettes and super-mullions. The north and south doors have stone dressings with four-centred heads and hood moulds.

The western porch is an unusual feature, also of brick. Its gable is stepped at the outer ends like small buttresses. The outer opening has three orders with a hood mould. The outer two orders have square heads with continuous jambs; the inner is segmental. The central section of the middle order has been renewed. The west window has five cusped lights with a transom in a four-centred head. Above it stands a small statue niche with a four-centred head and square hood mould. A tiny weather-boarded bell cot sits over the west end of the nave. The west door is four-centred with hollow chamfered mouldings and hood mould.

The interior is plastered and painted, with a timber-panelled dado. Windows have been renewed in stone on the inside. Although there is no structural division between nave and chancel, the 16th-century screen remains in its original position. The west end of the nave is screened off with a late 19th- or early 20th-century timber screen forming a vestry. The chancel roof was repaired or wholly rebuilt in 1747. It has four slender A-frames trussed with straight braces and two tiers of staggered purlins. It was formerly plastered and retains nails for former laths. The plain nave roof is 16th-century, of the tie beam and common rafter type. The west end of the roof was repaired in 1982 with steel brackets.

The 16th-century screen is an unusual form with a deep moulded cornice rather than cresting. It is divided into wide bays with evenly spaced, narrow lights with cusped heads and carved spandrels. It apparently never had doors and is very plain on the chancel side. The dado panelling of feather-edged boarding with a moulded cornice is probably also 16th-century in origin, much repaired on the south side but largely original on the north. A 19th- or early 20th-century timber reredos of blind ogee panels with carved details and a brattished cornice, similar in design to the choir stalls, stands behind the altar. A 19th-century communion rail has timber brackets. A 19th-century drum pulpit has open traceried sides. A small octagonal font, carved with quatrefoils, stands on an octagonal stem. Nave benches from around 1900 have shaped ends terminating in carved roundels. A 19th- or early 20th-century carved timber screen at the west end forms the vestry. The nave has a red tiled floor; the chancel is paved with 19th-century encaustic tiles and the sanctuary with mosaic. The church retains some 19th-century stained glass.

Smallhythe, meaning haven or landing place in Old English, was a port and major centre of ship building in the 14th to 16th centuries before the River Rother silted up in the early 17th century and changed course, now flowing some distance to the south. Henry VIII visited Smallhythe in 1537 to view progress on the construction of one of his warships. Dame Ellen Terry, the famous late 19th- and early 20th-century actress, lived in the adjacent Smallhythe Place and her funeral was held in this church in 1928.