Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

An Anglican parish church on Church Street in Pewsey, comprising medieval work from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, substantially restored in 1861 by G.E. Street and further restored in 1889-90 by C.E. Ponting.

The exterior is built of flint and sarsen with limestone dressings. The nave and south aisle are founded on large undressed sarsens, while the tower is of ashlar. Roofing is lead for the main building, copper for the south aisle and porch, and patterned coloured slate for the chancel chapels. The building comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a north porch, and a west tower. The chancel contains a south chapel and a north organ chamber with vestry attached.

The north porch, rebuilt in 1889, has a moulded door with quatrefoil spandrels within flanking stone frame, a crenellated gable, pinnacles and gargoyles, and a niche containing a figure of St John. The chancel retains late 13th-century lancet windows and a reticulated east window. The aisles and clerestorey have two and three-light square-headed windows, much restored. The south chapel incorporates reused late 13th to early 14th-century windows from the chancel. The chapel entrances have moulded doors. The tower comprises three stages with angle buttresses and two-light bell openings, a crenellated parapet, and crocketed pinnacles. A large five-light west window and moulded door occupy the base.

Interior features include an early 13th-century arcade of four uneven chamfered pointed arches with flat soffits, pierced through earlier walls to leave square piers. The nave roof comprises five bays of 19th-century open rafters with tie beams and brackets to purlins, with a door to the rood screen. Interesting 19th-century murals of angels on interlaced backgrounds by Canon Bouverie, now covered over, decorate the interior. The chancel arch is tripartite with round capitals and double chamfered arch, with a through squint from the south aisle. The chancel spans four bays with a 19th-century open roof. Its windows feature depressed two-centred rere-arches and nook shafts. A bold trefoiled 13th-century piscina and double arched sedilia are present. An opening leads to the north organ chamber, and a door with heating chamber below connects to the vestry. The roof timbers come from Ivychurch Priory refectory. The south chapel was added in 1861 by Street, extending the aisle, with two arches on a column to the chancel. A tall tower arch with fan vault on corner shafts supports the ringing chamber. The floor is raised by four steps. The south aisle contains a cinquefoiled piscina.

The font under the tower is a 12th-century limestone bowl on five columns, restored, with a fine suspended font cover of open carved oak by Canon Bernard Pleydell Bouverie commemorating Indian campaigns. The chancel fittings are by Street in Tractarian style, comprising a carved font on stone base, lectern, choir stalls with boxes for hymnals and five steps to a carved altar table, also by Canon Pleydell Bouverie, and a carved reredos with painted panels. A glazed screen encloses the south chapel. An elaborate carved chancel screen with rood loft, now removed to the choir vestry in the north aisle, originally occupied the space. The organ dates to 1897 by Griffen and Stroud. A 19th-century carved relief screen separates the organ chamber. The south chapel contains an inlaid alabaster reredos with a central roundel of white marble depicting heads in a deposition scene.

Monuments include a small foliated relief canopy in the chancel wall, three wall tablets (two to the Pleydell Bouverie family and one of 1816 in white marble on grey fields to Rev Joseph Townsend, Geologist and Rector, by Westmacott), and two 19th-century brasses. The south chapel holds a 17th-century wall monument with an oval slate panel in deeply carved and painted strapwork surround, commemorating Katherine Harding, wife of Groom of Bedchamber to Charles II, who died in Holland in 1645. The south aisle contains seven wall tablets, including a pair of oval inlaid marble monuments with crests to Robert Hopper (died 1782) and William Hopper (died 1791), a limestone aedicule with broken pediment to Richard Hopper (died 1766), and a marble panel with crested pediment to Henry Deacon of Oare House, wine merchant (died 1757), and his sister. Three early 19th-century tablets commemorate Charlotte Clapton (1828, by Harrison of Buckingham) and William Winter (by Wood of Bristol, 1824). The north aisle contains 13 wall monuments of late 18th to mid 19th-century date, with a further monument in the organ chamber, an urn on coloured field to Briant Chandler (died 1823).

Rev F. Pleydell Bouverie, rector from 1816 to 1857, came from Oriel College and was connected with the Oxford Movement.