Parish Church of St John

Parish Church of St John

This is a parish church built in 1843-44, created when the parish itself was established. It was the first church design by the architect Ewan Christian. The building underwent restoration and reseating in 1846 by F.W. Hunt at a cost of £2,044. The church is constructed in roughly-coursed squared ragstone with ashlar dressings, topped with a 20th-century peg-tile roof featuring tile patterns. The style is lancet, characteristic of Early English Revival architecture.

The church comprises a nave, north and south transepts, an apsidal chancel, a south-east tower, a north-east vestry, and a south-west porch.

The chancel features a hipped roof with an east gable, its eastern face decorated with pilaster buttresses with set-offs and a triple lancet window. Single lancets appear on the other faces, set in recessed panels with corbel tables. The buttressed nave spans five bays with buttresses rising to the wall plate. A bulbous string course runs at sill level, and lancet windows punctuate each bay. On the south side, corbel tables sit between the buttresses in each bay. The south-west porch is shallow and gabled, with a moulded doorframe featuring a hoodmould, Early English style shafts with bell capitals, and an 18th-century door with ornamental hinges. The west end of the nave has angle buttresses with a triple lancet in the centre bay flanked by single lancets, and a roundel in the gable. The transepts are similarly buttressed with triple lancet windows; the south window has a hoodmould.

The vestry, which adjoins the chancel somewhat awkwardly, has gables to the east and north and extends along the north end of the north transept.

The south-east tower stands in the angle between the apse and transept and is notably slender and fine. It rises in three stages with a broach spine decorated with two tiers of lucarnes. Angle buttresses create a panelled effect to the bellringers' stage, with a corbel table between them. The south doorway is richly moulded in Early English style, with a string course rising as a hoodmould. The doorway bears the inscription "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise". Lancet windows light the bellringers' stage, while large paired lancets with a hoodmould serve the belfry. The west face has a parted lancet at ground floor level.

Interior

The interior is dominated by spectacular arched-braced roofs springing from moulded corbels at window cill level. The nave roof comprises five bays plus a smaller bay at the crossing; the western bay dates to 1896. Each bay features diagonal braces and diagonal boarding. The crossing is formed by four curved braces with a moulded pendant at the apex. The chancel has two matching bays with shorter braces to the apse; the east window is framed by longer braces supported on clustered marble shafts. The painted decoration on the main trusses may be original. The transepts each have two bays with A-frame trusses. Christian's roof design was described by Newman as a rethinking of "the problem of the preaching box". The walls are plastered. In 1896, the chancel was embellished with alabaster and mosaic friezes on the apse walls, including a mosaic of the Agnus Dei in the gable over the altar.

The chancel includes dado panelling from 1925, 19th-century choir stalls, and a low chancel screen with a frieze of pierced trefoils and Jacobean-style finials. The late 19th-century pulpit, a timber drum with traceried panels on a stem, is accessible only from the chancel. Pair of fine brass sanctuary lamps in free Art Nouveau style grace the chancel. The nave contains a set of plain 1896 benches with shaped ends and a plain octagonal font on an octagonal stem.

Stained Glass and Monuments

The church contains an important collection of late 19th and early 20th-century stained glass. The west windows, including the roundel, are probably by Clayton and Bell. The nave windows are a matching set by Powell. The west window of the north transept is by the Morris Company; that in the south transept was designed by Burne-Jones. The south window of the south transept is high-quality work by Clayton and Bell. The east window is by Powell. A number of good late 19th and early 20th-century wall tablets are displayed throughout.

A plan and elevation of the "proposed new church", dated January 1843 and signed by Ewan Christian of 44 Bloomsbury Square, is preserved in the vestry.

This is one of Christian's finest churches.