Church Of St John The Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is a church dating from the 13th and 14th centuries. It was restored, with a south aisle and porch added in 1859 by E.F. Law, and further restoration and rebuilding in 1873 by H.C. Vernon. The church is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with slate roofs to the nave and chancel, lead roofs to the aisles and tower, and a plain-tile roof to the porch. It comprises a chancel, aisled nave, a south porch, and a west tower. The chancel features a three-light 19th-century Decorated east window and a similar two-light window to the south-west. A re-set original foliated east gable cross has been incorporated into the south wall. The nave's clerestory has a three-bay design, with a quatrefoil window to the south flanked by trefoiled windows, the arrangement being reversed to the north. The aisles have two-light 19th-century Decorated-style windows. The south door, with a re-set, many-moulded doorway, has six-panel double leaf doors fitted with 19th-century ornamental hinges and a hood mould. The south porch features a double hollow-chamfered doorway, a small niche above with an ogee hood mould, and a stone-coped gable with kneelers. The west tower has a two-light west window with ogee-arched heads to the lights and a quatrefoil to the head, with matching openings in the bell chamber and a battlemented parapet with gargoyles to the north and south. Nave and aisles have stone-coped parapets, chamfered stone eaves to the chancel, and angle buttresses to the chancel. The majority of the windows have hood moulds, except those within the clerestory, which are adorned with carved label stops.

Inside, the chancel contains a two-seat sedilia with double roll-moulded arches, and encaustic-tiled floors. The nave’s arcades are three-bay; the northern arcade dates to the 13th century and has circular piers with moulded bases and capitals, while the southern arcade is 19th century, featuring octagonal piers and polygonal responds. A Norman font, with palmette ornament in beaded scalloped moulding sits on a 19th-century base. 19th-century stained-glass windows are located at the east end and west end of the south aisle. A Hanoverian Royal Arms, painted on canvas, is also present. Several wall monuments are notable, including one to Gerance James, who died in 1645, with an inscription alluding to the Civil War. Other monuments commemorate Rev. John Gilbert (d.1730) and his wife Frances (d.1749), Rev. Bartholemew Keeling (d.1779) and his wife May (erected by the Rectors of Orlingbury and Maidford in April 1781), and Rhoda, wife of Rev. J.T. Flesher (d.1837), with an inscription beginning "SHE WAS ZEALOUSLY PIOUS WITHOUT ENTHUSIASM." A stone wall monument is signed by Whiting.