Church Of St John The Evangelist

The Church of St John the Evangelist is a church of 1866, designed by C.C. Rolfe for his father, Reverend G.C. Rolfe. It is constructed from squared and coursed limestone, with ashlar quoins and dressings, featuring a stone-coped gabled roof covered in stone and artificial slate. The building comprises a chancel and nave with a north aisle under a continuous roof. The buttressed walls include a two-bay chancel with three trefoiled lancets to the east and sexfoiled round windows to the sides, and a seven-bay north aisle with trefoiled lights. A north porch to the west features a quatrefoil window above a roll-moulded pointed-arched doorway. The four-bay south side of the nave has three-light plate-tracery windows with trefoiled centre-lights. The south porch has a label mould with bulbous stops over an unusually-stopped double-chamfered archway, and a roll-moulded south door of two orders. A French Gothic north-west bell turret has a conical roof, trefoiled openings, and red stone shafts with large foliate capitals. A graduated lancet west window is present.

The interior features arch-braced roofs. The chancel has red stone shafts with large foliate capitals to the rere arches of the east window, and grey shafts on bulbous corbels supporting the roof. A trefoiled reredos with painted tympana and roundels is also present, alongside a trefoiled piscina, and chamfered arches with red marble shafts to double sedilia. The chancel arch is roll-moulded, set on banded grey stone shafts with foliate capitals. The font, of banded red and buff stone, features similar banded grey stone shafts and carved symbols of the Evangelists in trefoiled niches, alongside a C18 classical font with a gadrooned stem. The four-bay north arcade incorporates red stone piers with white bands, bases, and capitals. A font to the west, of banded red and white stone, has a quatrefoil section and a carved Maltese cross. Painted charity boards are at the west end, commemorating charities of Joan Smith, who died in 1661, and William Wright. Mid/late 19th century iron candelabra with delicate ironwork to the stems are also present. The church was designed when C.C. Rolfe was 21, during his time working for his uncle, William Wilkinson, in Witney. It is noted for its eccentric and exuberant Gothic style.