Church Of St John

The Church of St John is an Anglican parish church dating from 1839, designed by Edward Mondey, with a late 19th-century chancel and organ chamber added later. The church is constructed of small blocks of Portland ashlar, with a slate roof to the nave and tile to the chancel. It is a simple structure built in the Commissioners’ Early English style.

The building has a broad, unaisled nave, a west tower, a lower chancel, and a vestry projecting from the southeast corner. The west front has small lancet windows on either side of the nave, under a raking moulding that terminates in stopped ends beneath the coping. The three-stage west tower features diagonal buttresses to the first two stages, with chamfered corners to the top stage, finished with a moulded cornice and crenellations. A pair of plank doors are set within a pointed arch, deep plain chamfer, and surrounded by a flush surround. Above the doors is a lancet window, and to the bell stage are louvred lancets, although the south face has a clock. The nave has four broad lancets, the first two with Y-tracery and original glazing, divided by plain buttresses with weathered offsets, set diagonally at the ends. The church has a high plinth, plain eaves, coped gables, and a small metal ventilator at the ridge. To the right of the nave is a projecting 20th-century vestry in similar detail, with a pointed-arch entrance door and a coped gable with kneelers above a lancet window facing the street. The set-back chancel has a small lancet window on the south side, and the east end has a plate-tracery six-foil rose window in a plain gabled wall. The steeper pitch of the chancel roof intersects with the coped gable of the nave. On the north side of the chancel is a small dressed square block, while the nave wall, built against rising ground, is constructed of rubble.

Inside, the nave has a plain, unaisled space spanning seven bays, with queen-post roof trusses supported by wooden corbels. Walls are plain, with deep window embrasures. The chancel arch is flanked on the left by a blind door and on the right by a door to the vestry. The chancel and sanctuary are raised on four steps, featuring a panelled reredos. The nave includes a west gallery supporting a large Willis organ installed in 1896, originally from St. Paul's School in West Kensington and relocated in 1969. Pine pews are present throughout the church, with those in the side aisles reputedly constructed by prisoners at The Verne. The plain lancets at the east end of each side contain stained glass; on the south side, a window dating from 1903, and on the north side, one signed C. Maile, Canterbury, 1971, and another unsigned window from 1968, dedicated to the Mothers’ Union. A stone staircase with an iron stick balustrade and wrought-iron rail is located within the west tower, providing access to the gallery. The church exhibits a simple dignity, reflecting the limited funding by the Commissioners, and forms a notable feature in the streetscape.