Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a parish church dating back to the 14th century, with a 12th-century west door. It was restored in 1894. The building is constructed of flint with stone dressings and a plain tiled roof. It comprises a west tower, a nave and south aisle, and a chancel with a continuous north aisle, a south porch, and an external vice.

The three-stage west tower stands on a plinth with string courses, battlements, large quoins, and an octagonal stair turret. The west doorway is Romanesque, featuring four orders of nail head, zig-zag, roll mould, zig-zag, and attached columns. Above the doorway is a 19th-century decorated style two-light window, with 15th-century Perpendicular belfry lights and a 20th-century clock. The south aisle has four 15th-century Perpendicular two-light windows with quatrefoils over and roll and hollow chamfered drip moulds. A 19th-century south door is set within a 15th-century doorway of three roll-moulded orders. An external octagonal vice adjoins the south aisle, with a diagonal buttress at the eastern end, alongside a 15th-century Perpendicular three-light and six-over south-east window. The chancel features 19th-century Perpendicular style windows. The north aisle contains an east window with a 15th-century Perpendicular three-light and six-over design, four offset buttresses, and three 15th-century late Curvilinear traceried windows of two lights with quatrefoils or sexfoils over.

Inside, a heavy tower arch features a triple hollow chamfer. The nave arcade consists of three octagonal moulded piers with double hollow chamfered arches and a double hollow chamfered chancel arch. The nave roof is of the crown post type. The south aisle has doors to an external vice for a rood stair, a lean-to and cross-beamed roof, while the north aisle has a crown post roof. Both north and south aisles each have one arch to the chancel, with double hollow chamfered arches. The chancel has two bays and a crown post roof. Fittings include a restored cusped piscina in the chancel and south-east window responds brought down to form sedillia. A finely moulded piscina is set into the north-east aisle wall. A 17th-century screen, constructed of two tiers of turned balusters and a low central door, separates the nave from the tower. A 14th-century octagonal font stands on a restored base. Several monuments are present, including a 17th-century wall plaque to Terrey Aldersey, with a Latin inscription, bolection moulded surround, shrouded death’s head, and broken swan-neck pediment with achievement. A wall plaque commemorates Humphrey Clarke, dated 1608, featuring black and white marble, a demi-angel with scrolls, a semi-circular headed plaque, Corinthian columns, a frieze, a broken pediment with a cartouche, and obelisks. A plaque to Thomas Brenchley, dated 1818, includes a cornice, an obelisk, a large urn flanked by burning torches, and is the work of Patten and Brisley of Rochester. A brass to Thomas Coly, dated 1518, depicts a clergyman holding a chalice. Fragments of 14th and 15th-century glass remain in the north aisle east window, including a Man of Sorrows depiction. Two coats of arms on lozenge panels are in the north aisle, and the Royal Arms of George III are displayed over the south door.