Church of St John the Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

This is a grade II listed church faced in rag stone rubble with yellow brick and Bath stone dressings. The roof is covered in clay tiles, with oak shingles covering the spire above the oak bell-cote. The interior is of red brick with black-faced brick and stone dressings, and features an encaustic tiled floor now largely covered by carpet in the nave and chancel.

The church has an L-shaped plan consisting of a two-bay chancel and sanctuary with a three-bay nave, orientated east to west. A south porch is positioned to the west, and to the north of the chancel, under a lean-to roof, is a vestry and organ. The space occupied by the organ, installed in the mid-20th century, originally contained pews, possibly seating for the local land-owning family or the choir. A late-20th century vestry and meeting room lies to the north of this.

The roofs over the nave and chancel are gable-ended with stone-verged parapets. To the west, the roof is surmounted by a square bell-cote and spire. The walls are buttressed in brick and rag stone, with angle buttresses at the east end and diagonal buttresses at the west end. Nave windows are arranged as paired lancets, while chancel windows are individual lancets with stone hood-moulds. A narrow brick impost band and thicker brick sill band runs around the building, becoming stone around the chancel.

At the west end is a five-point central light above three trefoil-headed lancets. The large plate tracery east window comprises a central six-point light over three narrow trefoil-headed lights. The south porch is gable-fronted with a tiled roof and pointed arch doorway. The boarded timber door has two leaves, centrally hinged, with heavy internal timber bracing.

The interior walls are red brick with a stone sill band and black-faced brick impost band. The chancel arch and window arches are striped with black brick. Windows throughout, except those with stained glass, are leaded and glazed with diamond-shaped quarries coloured in shades of yellow, blue, green and pink. Over the nave is a principal rafter roof with ashlaring, featuring upper and lower collars connected by a central strut, with alternate principal rafters having curved bracing.

The chancel arch springs from marble-columned console brackets. The chancel and sanctuary have stained vertical timber boarding below the sill band, topped by a canted ribbed and panelled timber ceiling with decorative motifs stained into the panels. A band of glazed tiles runs at the wall head. The original communion rail is oak, supported on decorative cast-iron uprights, with a newer rail added at the chancel.

The pews, clergy seats and desks are original and made of stained oak in a simple, robust design. The pulpit and font are original to the church, crafted from white and brown marble, with columns echoing the corbel brackets of the chancel arch. The central light of the east window depicts the Annunciation and is dedicated to a former rector, dated 1926. One of the nave windows is a stained glass composition by Kempe and Co., serving as a war memorial dedicated to the son of a former rector who fell in the First World War. The reredos is of stained hardwood, carved by a former rector and added in 1926. The nave is lit by oil-lamp chandeliers which have been converted to electricity.