Church Of St John The Evangelist

The Church of St John the Evangelist is a parish church dating from 1870, designed by J Hicks and G R Crickmay, with possible involvement from Thomas Hardy (Brocklebank). The church is constructed of flint, rubble, and ashlar, with ashlar dressings, and has tiled roofs with stone gable copings. It comprises a nave, chancel, north aisle, a north organ chamber, a west tower, and a south porch.

The west tower is of three stages separated by weathered strings and features an embattled parapet and an octagonal north vice turret. The west window contains three plate tracery lights within a pointed head. The second stage incorporates two reset 15th-century trefoiled single light windows. The belfry has square-headed windows of two trefoiled lights. The north aisle’s west window is of two trefoiled lights with plate tracery under pointed heads, while the east window consists of three graduated lancets. The north wall features pairs and triplets of trefoiled lancets. In the nave, a two-light square-headed window with Perpendicular tracery is located to the left of the porch, and two reset late 15th/early 16th-century square-headed windows with carved stops are positioned to the right. The chancel’s south wall has a reset 14th-century pointed two-light window with Y-tracery on the left and a 19th-century copy on the right; the east window is of three lights with intersecting tracery under a pointed head with a label featuring head stops. The south porch features a pointed, moulded arch with a label also adorned with head stops.

Inside, the chancel arch is pointed and moulded with respond shafts having moulded caps and bases. A four-bay, pointed arcade with piers of four clustered shafts, also with moulded caps and bases, separates the nave and aisle. The east respond displays 19th-century foliage carving. The arch to the organ chamber is segmental pointed, of two chamfered orders. The nave’s roof is an arch-braced scissor truss arrangement, springing from carved corbels depicting the Evangelists and Old Testament characters. The chancel is covered by a pointed, ribbed barrel vault springing from carved angels. The aisle has an arch-braced collar and king post roof with bracing. Features include a 19th-century stone pulpit with carved panels, 19th-century glass, a 13th-century font of Purbeck marble with an octagonal bowl containing pointed-headed panels on an octagonal stem and base, 19th-century monuments reset beneath the tower, 19th-century pews, and a 20th-century painted tower screen.