Parish Church Of St John The Evangelist

Parish Church of St John the Evangelist

A parish church built between 1861 and 1873 to the designs of George Edmund Street, with the west tower completed in 1884–85 by Arthur Edmund Street according to his father's designs. The Lady chapel was decorated in 1888 by John Dando Sedding. The building is constructed of local grey crazed limestone with Ham Hill dressings and has a slate roof with pierced crested ridge tiles.

The plan comprises a chancel with a south Lady chapel, a nave with clerestory above a 5-bay south aisle, and a south-west four-stage tower.

The chancel has two bays with a lower roof than the nave and flying buttresses on the south side. It contains two 2-light Geometric Decorated windows with a cinquefoil and roundel in the head. Between the buttresses sits a lean-to chapel with two 3-light Decorated windows featuring head trefoils. The south aisle has a moulded string at sill level, a corbel table, and five 2-light Geometric Decorated traceried windows. An eastern bay has a moulded-arched doorway with toothed moulding.

The buttressed nave is lit by four clerestory windows of four lancets under superordinate arches. The striking saddleback tower to the west features a triple chamfered doorway and an inner doorway with detached shafts. Above the doorway is a triple lancet window, followed by blind recesses containing slit windows. The belfry window is high, transomed, and richly moulded, with pairs of trefoil-headed lights above and below the transom. A rose window sits in the gable of the tower.

The interior is of spectacular, high quality. Internal walls are unplastered. The 5-bay arcades have clustered shafts of banded local polished limestone. The stone-vaulted chancel has moulded ribs and polychromatic banding to the infill. The chancel is enriched with mosaics, including a trefoil-headed frame to the reredos with carved figures by Earp in deep relief. Chancel walls feature blind marble arcading and marble and tile flooring. Copies of original Burne-Jones paintings hang on the north and south walls. An exceptionally fine 1865 Morris and Company east window is installed. The sanctuary has a wrought-iron and brass rail, and a wrought-iron and brass chancel screen with a gabled arch into the chancel. A wrought-iron screen separates the chancel from the south chapel.

The nave fittings include an octagonal freestone and local marble pulpit with mosaic inlay and a wrought-iron balustrade to the stairs. An octagonal font of local limestone and Italian marble features trefoil-headed blind panels and mosaics, with a splendid wrought-iron font cover by Arthur Edmund Street on a bracket. A full immersion font in local Torquay marble is also present. Salviati mosaic panels are found in the nave.

The stained glass is exceptionally fine, with a Burne-Jones-designed west window and other glass by Clayton & Bell.

The church was one of the leading centres of late 19th-century Anglo-Catholicism. A detailed account of the building, including information on contractors, craftsmen, and costs, is found in "History of St John's, Torquay" by RJE Boggis (1930).