Church Of St John

The Church of St John is a parish church located on Bournemouth Road in Spetisbury. It has elements dating from the late 12th or early 13th century for the north arcade, a west tower from the late 15th or early 16th century, a north chapel added in 1868, and the remainder of the church built in 1858, with a restoration in 1895 by T H Wyatt. The church is constructed of flint with squared rubble and banded flint and rubble, featuring ashlar dressings, and has tiled roofs with stone copings.

The church's layout includes a nave, chancel, west tower, north aisle, and chapel, along with a south porch. The three-stage tower has weathered strings, an embattled parapet, diagonal buttresses on the first stage, and an octagonal north vice. The pointed west door is chamfered, and there is a single-light west window with a pointed head. The belfry features paired windows with pointed heads beneath square, stopped labels. The north aisle contains two and three-light Perpendicular tracery windows under straight heads, some of which are original and have been reset. The east chancel window consists of three tracery lancets under a common pointed head, while the north and south chancel walls have lancets and paired lancets. A pointed priest's door is detailed with two chamfered orders. The south nave windows are three-light Perpendicular style under square heads.

The gabled porch has a pointed arch formed by two chamfered orders and includes plate tracery windows. The inner door features a pointed, moulded head. Inside, there is a three-bay arcade with stilted segmental arches on cylindrical columns with moulded capitals, and a pointed tower arch with three chamfered orders that die into responds. The early 17th-century polygonal pulpit has panelled sides adorned with highly enriched decoration, including Ionic capitals, beasts, cherub-heads, and strapwork. Notable monuments include a chest tomb for John Bowyer from 1599, which features strapwork enrichment and a heavy pediment supported by Ionic columns and half-columns. The church also contains 19th and 20th-century glass, as well as a painted inscription to bell-ringers on a painted panel in the tower.