Church Of St John The Baptist

DYMOCK PRESTON SO 63 SE

4/95 Church of St. John the Baptist 2.10.54

GV I

Parish Church. Late Cll, C13, C14, 1859, 1885 restoration. Roughly squared random rubble, ashlar dressings, coursed squared stone to south aisle, tiled roof. Porch timber-framed, rendered panels on stone plinth, stone-slate roof. Nave, south aisle, chancel, vestry, north porch. North, entrance facade: on right square-set C19 buttress: gabled porch, low plinth, 2-panel high framing at sides, open end, ovolo mould to posts and arch braces to tie beam, 2 collars over, scalloped bargeboards, iron cross on ridge. Internally, collar truss with curved braces, clasped purlins, row hatpegs on backboard on. left . Covers square-headed doorway, chamfered reveals, semi-circular tympanum with Agnus Dei and dummy voussoirs: boarded door. To left of porch vertical joint in stonework: round-headed lancet, on left paired lancets with trefoil heads: large, square-set buttress with 2 offsets. Parapet gable each end: roll on apex at east: bellcote west. Chancel same width as nave: plinth: trefoil-headed lancet on right, paired 1885 lancets left, trefoil heads, diagonally-set corner buttress. Parapet gable, cross-gablet apex with stone cross, crested ridge tiles. East end, plinth, diagonally-set corner buttresses, twin lancets, trefoil heads. Oval wall monument on right, E. Palmer, 1795. Set back on left lean-to gable to Cl9 vestry. West end, plinth, buttress on left, 2 central projections rising to support bellcote, 2 offsets each side. Between, set back 2 lancets, one above other, upper semi-circular head, lower trefoil. On right lean-to gable of south aisle. Projections linked by arch, offsets each side above roof behind: moulded string course. Twin arched openings for bellcote, trefoil above: coped gable with iron weatherwane on apex. Interior: plastered walls: wide, probably C19 chancel arch. Three-bay arcade to aisle, circular pillars, moulded caps and bases. No clerestory. Nave roof arch-braced collar purlin. Piscina in chancel below west window on north: low sills to north and south windows at east end. Facetted boarded, panelled ceiling. Pulpit open 7-sided timber, trefoil heads to sides over clustered columns, low stone base: matching communion rail. Octagonal stone font on stem, quatrefoils to sides of bowl (C19). A little medieval glass in one south aisle window. Baroque monument to Anne Robbins in nave (1658). Other wall monuments, C17 to second quarter C19. Bellcote and associated work to west wall probably of same date as south aisle, added 1859. Chancel, restored 1885. Forms group with Preston Court (q.v.). (Kelly's Gloucestershire, 1879; D. Verey, Gloucestershire, the Vale and the Forest of Dean, 1970)

Listing NGR: SO6799234591