Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

Parish church of the 13th century with a late 14th-century nave, restored by F. S. Waller in 1879–80. The church is built of random rubble limestone, mostly rendered with roughcast, with an ashlar tower and stone slate roof. It comprises a nave with a north aisle, chancel, west tower attached to the aisle, and north and south porches.

The north doorway is Early English with a pointed arch and a 19th-century plank door. The north porch is timber-framed from the 15th century, featuring cusped arched bracing and splat balustrading to its open sides, with coursed limestone base walls and internal stone seats. The north aisle is buttressed and contains two restored Decorated 3-light windows. The south porch is also timber-framed, with weatherboarding on coursed limestone base walls, and has a pointed arch doorway with a large medieval plank and batten door.

The nave windows include a 3-light Perpendicular window on the left, a 5-light window from the early 16th century with low intersecting tracery set in a square opening on the right, and a 3-light Perpendicular window in a parapet gable at the west. The south nave wall is buttressed. The east end has two parapet gables of equal size and proportions. The restored 19th-century chancel window has a brattished super-transom, with unfinished stops and panels in arcading below. A 3-light aisle window with intersecting tracery is present, and diagonal offset buttresses flank the east end. A priest's doorway with an ogee head and medieval door is set in the south chancel wall, with a 2-light Early English lancet to its left.

The tower is a four-stage structure with angle buttresses to the lower two stages. It is rendered except for the top stage, which is a 14th-century addition with 2-light belfry openings and slate louvres, topped with a moulded crenellated parapet. The second stage has Early English lancets, including a trefoil-headed west lancet below.

The interior is limewashed. A five-bay Early English arcade has attached columns with moulded capitals and bases to the inner pier faces. The nave roof is 19th-century restored timber with arched braced collar trusses on stone corbels and arched wind bracing. The Early English pointed chancel arch has attached columns to its responds. The chancel floor is tiled and was raised in the 19th century, with a restored timber panelled roof. A wide and low four-centred arch connects the chancel to the east end of the north aisle. The 13th-century pointed tower arch opens to a five-bay arched braced collar truss aisle roof with trusses doubled and a crown post sandwiched above the tie beam at the junction between the aisle and the former chancel, now used as an organ chamber and vestry, which has a three-bay roof with a brattished wall plate.

The chancel contains monuments to the Guise family of Elmore Court. On the north side is a chest tomb to Johannes Gyse (died 1472), with an incised line portrait of a knight in armour with a canopy over the head and a hound at the feet on a plain chamfered top, inscribed with Gothic script in an incised border. Above is a wall memorial to William Guise (died 1716) by John Ricketts of Gloucester, a Baroque work with bolection mouldings, a segmental pediment surmounted by mourning putti flanking the Guise arms. On the south chancel wall is a memorial to Sir William Guise (died 1642) by Joseph Reeve of Gloucester, in Jacobean Baroque style, flanked by twisted Composite columns supporting a scrolled pediment surmounted by putti holding a wreath over the Guise arms. On the south nave wall is a memorial to Daniel Ellis (died 1797) by William Stephens of Worcester, with a scrolled pediment and crest, a panel flanked by putti, a death's head and hour-glass. Nearby is a memorial to Richard Leighton (died 1683), surmounted by a broken pediment with a central flaming funereal urn.

The nave and aisle contain 17th-century box pews with linenfold panelling, attached to matching wainscot. A plain 18th-century panelled octagonal timber pulpit stands in the nave. The north aisle contains a High Victorian Gothic font by Waller with a large architectural lid, and an 18th-century tall stone vase-font. Three 19th-century Guise hatchments are displayed on the west nave wall. The stained glass is mainly 19th-century, including a large south nave window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, dated 1903.