Church Of St John

Church of St John, St John's Street, Keswick

A parish church built in 1838 by architect Anthony Salvin, with substantial extensions in 1862, 1882, and 1889 by William Marshall, featuring stained glass by Henry Holiday.

The church is constructed of pink Castle-Head ashlar sandstone with slate roofs. It comprises a nave and chancel under a single roof, a west tower, north and south aisles, north-west and south-east porches, and an octagonal south vestry.

The exterior displays geometrical Gothic style, with the original 1838 nave north and south walls and windows retained and re-used for the later aisles. A moulded plinth, coped gables, and swept eaves run throughout. The nave and chancel are finished with pinnacles on the angles. The three-stage tower, topped with a parapet stone spire, features angle buttresses in the lower stages with gabled offsets and a polygonal north-east turret. The west doorway has two orders of shafts and double doors with original studs. The second stage contains a four-light west window below a round clock set in a square frame. The bell stage is narrower, with octagonal clasping buttresses and central shafts carried up to the parapet as if to receive pinnacles. The bell stage openings are two two-light windows with louvres, each with outer narrower hood moulds suggesting blank arcading. The buttressed aisles comprise a four-bay south aisle and five-bay north aisle under separate roofs, with three-light and two-light windows set in recessed panels below corbel tables. A shallow porch with segmental-headed doorway lies below the south-aisle east window. The north porch, a clumsy addition probably of 1889, is gabled in line with the aisle and has a segmental-headed east doorway. The chancel displays three stepped two-light east windows with shafts, alongside two-light and three-light north and south windows—the north one re-set, the south-east window shorter and clearly added in 1889. The octagonal vestry has lancet windows and its own west porch.

The interior is characterised by a wide nave and chancel with no structural break between them. Four-bay arcades with round piers and double-chamfered arches support the space. The tall tower arch has two orders of shafts, partially enclosed by a gallery front of blind arcading. Both nave and chancel have closed polygonal wagon roofs: in the nave these stand on corbelled shafts, and in the chancel on corbels. The transition between nave and chancel is defined by an arched-brace truss on angel corbels. Ribs are painted and decorated with stencilled foliage. The aisles have arched-brace roofs on corbelled brackets with notional hammerbeams. In the chancel, north and south windows have rere arches with central colonnettes and geometrical tracery, while the piscina and sedilia feature cusped arches, creating a fine decorative display with the windows.

The principal fixtures include a round pulpit and square font, each with blind arcading, designed by Salvin. The nave benches date to the 1930s and have plain square ends. The choir stalls feature square-headed Gothic-panelled ends and frontal. An arcaded communion rail, probably also by Salvin, runs across the chancel. Two similar Gothic wall monuments with tripartite blind arcading commemorate John Marshall (died 1836, the church's founder) and Frederic Myers (died 1851).

The chancel windows (1888–89) were designed by Henry Holiday (1839–1927) while still a designer for Powell's, and rank among his finest work. Additional windows include a 'suffer little children' window of around 1923 in the south aisle by Veronica Whall and a window by Christine Boyce from 1990.

Anthony Salvin (1799–1881) was a London-based architect and a significant figure in the late-Georgian and early-Victorian Gothic Revival. He established independent practice in 1828 and quickly demonstrated his ability to create buildings in an authentically medieval style, becoming equally renowned for country house commissions. The patron was John Marshall, owner of a Leeds flax mill, who purchased Castlerigg Manor in 1832 but died before the church's completion. His descendants continued to support the church, commissioning the aisles in 1862 and 1882, and lengthening the chancel by one bay in 1888–89 under the designs of William Marshall, a family member who was also an architect.