Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a parish church dating to the 13th century, with a significant restoration in 1871 by Francis Niblett. It is constructed of coursed, squared, and ashlar limestone with a stone slate roof. The church consists of a nave without aisles, a chancel, a south porch, and a north vestry. The south doorway has a pointed arch and retains a medieval plank and batten door; it is situated within a restored porch with pointed arch and diagonal corner buttresses to the gable. Narrow lancet windows are situated on the sides. Two trefoil-headed nave lancets are found to the right. The east end of the nave features a wide offset buttress and wide coping to the gable below a 13th-century bellcote, which has an octagonal stone spire with four attached octagonal pinnacles and 19th-century iron crosses. A central moulded bracket supports space for two bells. Inside the church, two 18th-century memorials are set into the wall to the west of the porch. A blocked 13th-century doorway is visible in the north nave wall, accompanied by three trefoil-headed lancets. A 19th-century west window incorporates quatrefoil tracery and carved head labels to the hood mould. The east chancel wall has a restored pair of 19th-century 2-light windows. Two trefoil-headed 13th-century lancets face south, with an 18th-century memorial to the right; a single trefoil-headed lancet is located to the north, adjoined by a lean-to 19th-century vestry with trefoil-headed north lancets. The interior has been limewashed. The nave features a 4-bay collar truss roof. A 13th-century pointed chancel arch has a chamfered archivolt; the chancel was altered in the 19th century and includes a 3-bay arcaded reredos with tile inlay, a raised floor, and a plank-boarded roof. There is a large chamfered segmental arch to the vestry. A cinquefoil-headed piscina is present in the south chancel wall, accompanied by a credence table, and a cinquefoil-headed piscina in the south nave wall. A 20th-century altar screen with carved angels on riddle posts complements a Jacobean hexagonal pulpit placed on a 19th-century moulded stone base. The church also boasts 19th-century box pews. Two 18th-century memorials flank the chancel arch; the right memorial, dedicated to Rev. Mr Jonathan Blagge BA, who died in 1726, incorporates an oval inscription panel with putti and cherubs topped by a painted bust of the rector. The left memorial, dedicated to CHARLES STOCK, Rector of Harescombe, who died in 1707/8, is also painted. Stained glass from the 19th and 20th centuries is present in the west and east windows respectively.