Church Of St John Baptist

The Church of St John Baptist is an Anglican parish church, largely dating from the late 12th century with substantial additions and alterations through the 13th, 15th, 17th, and 19th centuries. The construction is of squared and coursed rubble with stone dressings, with some dressed stone to the chancel and north porch, and features ashlar battlements and copings beneath stone slate roofs. The church consists of a nave, chancel, west tower, north aisle and chapel, and north and south porches.

The south side of the nave has a 2-light window from the 15th century and a 4-light window of the same period, both with flat heads and hoodmoulds. The chancel has a 3-light window with curvilinear tracery in the east wall, dating to the 19th century. The north chapel’s east window is a pointed arch from the early 13th century, with two trefoil-headed lights and a quatrefoil above. The north aisle has two 15th-century four-light windows under Tudor arches with hoodmoulds, a moulded string course, and an embattled parapet; the aisle’s west window is also 15th century, but restored. The four-stage west tower is unbuttressed, with moulded string courses marking each receding stage. A canted staircase turret projects from the south face, and the tower is topped with a pierced quatrefoil parapet and corner pinnacles. The west facade features a 3-light window in a 13th-century style on the first stage, single lancet openings on all faces of the second stage, and round-headed 2-light bell openings. A gabled north porch is from the 19th century, and a gabled south porch features a Tudor-arched entrance, a sundial above, a Tudor-arched south doorway with a plank door, and a coved ribbed plaster vault.

Inside, the north arcade comprises four bays with circular piers, trumpet and stiff-leaf capitals, and round-headed arches. Flat rafter roofs cover the nave and aisle. A double-chamfered arch defines the chancel, and a two-bay arcade leads to the north chapel. Coved ribbed plaster vaults, resting on moulded wallplates, are present in the chancel and chapel. There is a benefaction board dated 1706, a section of a screen from 1630, and a stained glass window from 1891 in the west wall. A late 12th-century font with a hexagonal base and bowl decorated with cable and pellet moulding is also present. The church includes an oil painting of the Virgin and Child above the south door, another depiction of the same subject to the left of the chancel arch, and a former carved backboard from a Caroline pulpit dated 1630, which corresponds in style and inscription to a similar feature at St Michael’s, Brinkworth. A stained-glass window from 1876 is in the north aisle’s west window, and a memorial window from 1941 by G.E.R. Smith commemorates the 20th Earl of Suffolk within the north-west window, featuring an inscription by John Masefield. The chancel contains late 19th-century stained glass. The north chapel houses a large monument from 1598 to Sir Henry Knyvett and family, featuring an eight-poster with strapwork decoration, recumbent stone effigies, and kneeling figures. An organ is housed within sections of screenwork, which are partly from the 15th century and partly Jacobean/Caroline in style.