Church of St John the Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

An Anglican parish church on the east side of High Street in Keynsham, originally dating to around 1250–70 with significant subsequent additions and alterations. The south aisle was added in 1390; the south porch and chancel were rebuilt in 1470. After the collapse of the tower and storm damage, restoration took place between 1634 and 1655, including the construction of the west tower. Further restoration occurred in 1861–63. The roof was restored between 1951 and 1957 and the outer walls between 1962 and 1965.

The church is constructed of coursed and squared rubble with banded ashlar to the tower, ashlar dressings and copings. The chancel has a plain clay tile roof and the nave a slate roof. The building comprises an eight-bay nave with north and south aisles, chancel, west tower, south porch and south-east vestry.

The exterior is Decorated and Perpendicular Gothic in style. The chancel features a 19th-century Perpendicular-style two-centre arched east window with panelled tracery. Its north side has three 13th-century lancets, one blocked, and its south wall a single 13th-century lancet. The chancel has ballflower decoration to its cornice and buttresses with set-offs.

The north side of the nave has buttresses with set-offs, a battlemented parapet with weathered gargoyles below and a polygonal turret for the rood-loft staircase. The eastern bay has a two-light 19th-century Early English Gothic style window with head stops, followed by six Perpendicular Gothic style pointed-arched windows with three-light panelled tracery. A central north doorway with a plain moulded arch and plank door faces into the nave.

The three-stage west tower dates to around 1634 and is Gothic Survival in style. It has set-back buttresses and an open trefoil parapet with blank arcading to the corners, surmounted by crocketed pinnacles. The lower stage has the west doorway with plain moulded arch and two-leaf framed door, and above it a four-light Perpendicular Gothic window. The second stage features two tiers of blind panelling with a 19th-century cast-iron Gothic style clock face to the west. The upper stage has two-light bell openings with Y-tracery and louvres, and a sundial to the south face beneath the bell openings.

The south-west wall of the south aisle has a five-light Perpendicular Gothic style window and a blocked doorway below. The south aisle has a blind parapet and three-light Perpendicular Gothic style windows with dripstones and a polygonal turret for the rood-loft staircase. The south porch features 19th-century openings but a 14th-century statue niche above the outer doorway and wrought-iron gates with quatrefoils. Within the porch is a tierceron vault on recarved corbel heads and a 19th-century arch to the church interior with a two-leaf 20th-century door.

A small doorway at the south-east corner has a 19th-century plank door. The south-east wall has a five-light Perpendicular Gothic style window, and the chancel has one lancet.

The interior contains a 19th-century tie-beam roof to the nave and similar mid-17th-century roofs to the aisles decorated with quatrefoil and lozenge panels; all roofs are supported on carved stone corbels. The chancel has a 19th-century hammer-beam roof. The seven-bay north arcade has piers of four-waves section and the eight-bay south arcade has octagonal piers with hollow mouldings. There is a Perpendicular arch to the tower and a 19th-century arch to the chancel.

The nave contains three brass chandeliers of 1717–21 given by Ann Tilly; a baluster stem font with circular bowl given by Harry Bridges in 1725; a further font of 1864 in Perpendicular Gothic style, octagonal with wooden spired cover; a wooden pulpit of around 1655 with blind arcading and diamond-cut decoration; and an 1893 wooden eagle lectern.

The south aisle retains a section of mid-15th-century wooden rood screen, moved from the chancel, which survived the fall of the north-east tower in 1632. It comprises three-light divisions with panel tracery, a leaf frieze, cresting and coving for the rood decorated with suns. The south aisle also has a burial hatchment high on the aisle wall.

The chancel contains a further wooden screen, which replaced the original, now reset between the chancel and vestry. It comprises a colonnade of round-headed arches and a centrepiece above with terminal pilasters and an achievement of arms to Charles II dated 1665. The chancel also houses choir stalls and altar rail of 1913. The west tower has five benefaction and charity boards on the south wall.

Wall memorials to the north and south aisles are mostly 18th and 19th century, with one of 1659 to Joane Flower of Saltford Manor. The chancel north wall contains a monument to Sir Henry Bridges, died 1587, comprising a recumbent effigy on a tomb chest with caryatids, an arched top on pillars, coats of arms on the back wall and small allegorical figures on the tops of the arches. The south wall has a monument to Sir Thomas Bridges, died 1661, comprising a hanging triptych with a kneeling figure of Sir Thomas in the centre and angels to the sides; the three parts are emphasised by four twisted columns carrying open segmental pediments and an apse vault over the centre with carved clouds and angels. Further 17th and 18th-century wall memorials commemorate the Bridges family.

The church contains 19th-century stained glass including the tower window of 1869; the south aisle west window of 1860; the north aisle window in the last bay to the east of 1876 and the north aisle west window of 1902. The chancel's north and east windows date to 1961.

The south wall of the west tower bears a copy of the 'Brief' of Charles I enabling the church to solicit help from other parishes after the fall of the north-east tower in 1632. The monument to Sir Thomas Bridges is similar in style to that at Rodney Stoke, Somerset, to Sir Edward Rodney (died 1657); Sir Thomas's mother was a Rodney.