Church Of St John The Baptist

ST 92 SE EBBESBOURNE WAKE EBBESBOURNE WAKE VILLAGE (west side)

6/116 Church of St. John the Baptist

23.3.60

GV II*

Anglican parish church. C14, C17 and restored 1876. Flint with limestone dressings, ashlar tower, tiled roof. Plan: nave, chancel, west tower, north aisle and transept, south porch. Gabled south porch has double chamfered pointed doorway, coped verge with cross finial. Nave to left and right has restored 2- light pointed window with Y-tracery and hoodmould, angle buttresses to west. Chancel has 2-light window with Y-tracery, buttress with offsets, rainwater heads dated 1876. East end has 2 buttresses and 2-light C19 pointed window, over is incised tablet: WP IB/1696; William Perry and John Bodenham who paid for chancel repairs. North side of chancel has C19 two-light window, lean-to vestry has chamfered shouldered doorway and 3 shouldered windows. North side of nave has two 2-light windows with Y-tracery, blocked pointed chamfered doorway. Two-stage C14 west tower has diagonal buttresses with niches, pentagonal stair turret with arrowloops, heavily moulded plinth and blocked cyma-moulded doorway to west, 3- light Perpendicular window over, offset bell stage has 3-light square-headed windows with Tudor-arched lights and pierced decorative louvres, parapet with coping and corner pinnacles. Interior: Three-bay nave has C19 crown post trusses and scissor- rafter roof, tiled floor, windows have restored C13 attached shafts and cusped inner openings. Wooden chancel screen with traceried openings, of 1899. Chance as polychrome tiled floor, double chamfered C19 arch to vestry/organ chamber, 2-bay roof similar to nave, trefoil piscina and sedilia below enriched pediments with pinnacles. Tower has tall pointed opening from nave with hollow- chamfered arch on foliated corbels, rib-vaulted ceiling springing from corbels with carved beasts and heraldic shields, Tudor-arched chamfered doorway to tower stairs on north. Fine C12 Purbeck marble font, in tower, has central column with 4 shafts supporting square bowl. C19 pews and pulpit. Chancel glass of 1870s to Parham family. (N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Wiltshire, 1975.)

Listing NGR: ST9915524175