Church Of St John

SPETISBURY ST 90 SW BOURNEMOUTH ROAD (West side)

8/85 Church of St John 14-7-55 GV I

Parish church, north arcade late C12 or early C13, west tower late C15 or early C16, north chapel 1868, remainder of church 1858, restoration of 1895. 1858 work by T H Wyatt. Flint with squared rubble and banded flint and rubble with ashlar dressings. Tiled roofs with stone copings. Plan: nave; chancel; west tower; north aisle and chapel; south porch, 3-stage tower with weathered strings, embattled parapet, diagonal buttresses to first stage and octagonal north vice. Chamfered, pointed west door. Single-light west window with pointed head. Paired belfry windows with pointed heads under square, stopped labels. North aisle has 2 and 3-light Perpendicular tracery windows under straight heads, some original, reset. East chancel window of 3 tracery lancets under common pointed head. North and south chancel walls have lancets and paired lancets. Pointed priest's door of 2 chamfered orders. 3-light Perpendicular south nave windows under square heads. Gabled porch with pointed arch of 2 chamfered orders and plate tracery windows. Inner door with pointed, moulded head. Internal features; 3 bay arcade of stilted segmental arches on cylindrical columns with moulded capitals; pointed tower arch of 3 chamfered orders dying into responds; early C17 polygonal pulpit with panelled sides having highly enriched decoration with Ionic capitals, beasts, cherub-heads, strapwork etc: Various monuments, notably a chest tomb to John Bowyer 1599 with strapwork enrichment over which is a heavy pediment with scrolled frieze supported on Ionic columns and half-columns; C19 and C20 glass; painted inscription to bell-ringers on painted panel in tower. (RCHM, Dorset, vol.III, p.242/3, no.1. Newman, J. and Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England: Dorset 1972m p.394/5.)

Listing NGR: ST9094202924