Church Of St John The Baptist

HINDON HIGH STREET ST 9032 (east side)

8/136 Church of St. John the Baptist

GV II

Anglican parish church. 1870-71 by T.H. Wyatt, on the site of a Medieval chapel. Limestone ashlar, tiled roof. Plan: Nave and aisles, south-west tower with spire over entrance, chancel and south vestry. South doorway at base of tower has roll-moulded pointed archway with attached shafts with stiff-leaf capitals, 3- stage tower has angle buttresses and string courses, second stage has chamfered lancet and octagonal clock face, bell stage has 2- light plate tracery window with attached shafts and louvres, Lombard frieze to cornice, plain 4-sided spire. South aisle has two 2-light plate tracery windows with gables to lean-to roof, nave clerestory has three lancets. Gabled south vestry has shouldered doorway and lancet with quatrefoil to right, square ashlar stack, east side has 2 shouldered windows. Chancel has lancet on south side, three lancets with attached shafts and multifoil in moulded surround to east end, angle buttresses and coped verge with cross finial, north side has two lancets. North aisle has three windows as south aisle, five lancets to clerestory. West end has roll- moulded pointed doorway with double planked doors, flanked by pairs of attached shafts, gabled hood over with Agnus Dei and stiff-leaf finial, lancet either side and multifoil over. Cylindrical stair turret with chamfered loopholes in north-west angle between south aisle and tower. Interior: Porch below tower has pointed roll-moulded arch with double planked doors to nave, segmental-headed planked doors to stairs and to south aisle. Nave has 5-bay arch-braced collar roof with scissor trusses to half-bays, exposed rafters. Five-bay double-chamfered north arcade on cylindrical piers, 3-bay south arcade with organ filling eastern bay, lean-to aisle roofs with exposed rafters. Interior walls are rendered with ashlar dressings, stone floors. Roll-moulded and hollow-chamfered pointed chancel arch with marble shafts and hoodmould with foliated terminals. Chancel has 3-bay arch-braced collar truss roof, exposed ashlar walls, polychrome tiled floor, 2-seat trefoil-headed sedilia on south walls, roll-moulded pointed doorway to vestry, east windows have rere-arches on pink marble shafts with stiff-leaf capitals. Fittings: C19 wrought iron and wood communion rail, pulpit with wooden open arcading on stone base, original pews, 1870s cylindrical stone font with carved decoration on four marble shafts around central stone column. Some classical marble wall tablets reset from earlier church; such as to James Ames died 1818, Ruth Hunter died 1794. Paid for by Marchioness of Westminster as memorial to the Marquess of Westminster of Fonthill Abbey (q.v.). (\n. Sheard, The History of Hindon, 1979)

Listing NGR: ST9097932927