Parish Church Of St John And St Helen

The Parish Church of St John and St Helen is a Grade I listed building located in Wroughton, with origins dating back to the 15th century. The church features a west tower from the 15th century, a 14th-century nave with aisles and clerestory, and a 14th-century chancel that includes a north chapel and a two-bay 19th-century vestry. The church underwent restorations by T. H. Wyatt in 1846, 1852, the 1880s, and 1905. Little remains of the original Norman church, except for parts of the north and south doom and possibly the bases of the arcades. The structure is built of rubble and has lead roofs, with decorative cornices and parapets featuring corbel heads and finials.

Most of the windows are in the Decorated style, with the east window consisting of five lights and almond-shaped upper tracery. The clerestory windows are square-headed with foiled lights. The south door, dating from the late 12th century, features a horizontal zig-zag order and saltire crosses on the label, with foliate caps on slender nook shafts. The north door, from around 1200, is a pointed doorway with scalloped caps. The three-stage embattled tower, which has corner pinnacles added in 1846, features set-off stages and diagonal buttresses on the ground and first stages. The upper stage may have been added later, with two-light traceried windows in the belfry.

Inside, the church has double chamfered pointed arcades with dying mouldings, with the north arcade dating from 1846, likely replacing a Norman one. The nave has a late 14th or early 15th-century roof, characterized by moulded principal timbers, low-pitched paneling, arched upper purlins, and arcaded trusses supported by carved head corbels. The chancel features a 19th-century windbrace roof with hammerbeam corbels. There is an arcaded medieval reredos in the south aisle, along with fine sedilia that have crocketted ogee arches and a carved piscina, both likely from the 14th century. The church contains notable memorials in the chancel, including those to the Benets, Buttons, and a 18th-century memorial to the Codringtons, as well as an epitaph to William Sadler from the early 17th century that references the Armada. A large iron-bound parish chest is located in the nave. The churchyard is filled with 17th and 18th-century headstones, including a triple headstone on the north side, and several chest tombs to the south, some shaded by a large yew tree outside the south porch.