Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a parish church dating back to the late 12th century. The chancel was heavily rebuilt in the late 13th century, while the nave was rebuilt and extended in the 14th century. A north aisle and west tower were added in the 14th century, and a south aisle and south chapel were significantly rebuilt in the early 15th century for Nicholas Ledewich. A north porch was constructed in the 16th century, and the church was restored in 1902.

The church is primarily constructed from flint, with some roughcast rendering, chalk dressings, and brick in the plinth. It has old tile roofs. The two-stage west tower features a battlemented parapet, diagonal buttresses, and chamfered arched lights (two on each side of the bell chamber). A 19th-20th century window with plate tracery sits above an altered doorway with a double-chamfered arch. The nave has 19th-20th century gabled dormer windows concealed behind the aisle roofs. The aisles have two bays of 15th-century two-light traceried chalk windows with flat heads and Tudor hoodmolds, and a single cusped window to the west. The north aisle also has a Perpendicular east window of three traceried lights with an arched head. A small south door has an almost semi-circular moulded arch, and the north doorway is within a timber-framed porch with rendered infill, cusped bargeboards, and a reused arched door. The south chapel has similar window openings to the aisles, including two two-light windows to the south, and a restored three-light east window. The chancel holds two late 13th-century north windows with two lights and tracery in arched heads, and a restored three-light east window with ogee tracery. A small, blocked north door is also present.

Inside, a tall, double-chamfered tower arch has moulded imposts and stop-chamfered jambs. Three-bay nave arcades feature moulded double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers. A trefoil-headed niche with restored dogtooth ornament is visible in the northeast corner of the nave. The nave roof is from 1902, while the rest of the church retains original roofs, which have been refurbished with arched-braced collars and arched windbraces. A double-chamfered arch separates the south aisle from the chapel, and a late 12th-century unmoulded, two-centered chancel arch exists. The north windows of the chancel have moulded inner arches supported by slender shafts with moulded caps and bases. Between the chancel and the south chapel are an unmoulded 12th-century semi-circular arch, and a four-centered moulded arch over the tomb of Nicholas Ledewich, who died in 1430. The church contains a medieval tub font and some 15th-century glass re-set in the east window of the south chapel, along with 19th-20th-century fittings. Monuments include a brass of Nicholas Ledewich’s wife on an arched tomb, a good marble wall monument in the south chapel to James Chase of Westhorpe, M.P., with a gadrooned base, fluted pilasters, and an arched cornice with paterae and an urn. There are also mid-19th century marble tablets to the Nugent family of Westhorpe, by E. Gaffin of Regent St., a two-tier tablet in the south aisle to the Wilkinson family of Westhorpe, dating from approximately 1784, and a small oval tablet to Henry Corker who died in 1696/7, in the north aisle.