Church Of St John

The Church of St John is a parish church of 1856, designed by Frederick John and Horace Francis for the Reverend Christopher Parker. Repairs were ongoing to the east end at the time of inspection in May 1992. The church is constructed of coursed squared red sandstone with graduated green slate roofs and red ridge tiles, built in the Decorated style.

The church comprises a small four-bay nave, a south-west tower, a three-bay south aisle, and a two-bay chancel with a single-bay north vestry. The three-stage tower is embraced by the nave and aisle and projects to the west. It features a chamfered plinth, diagonal buttresses with three offsets, an embattled parapet with corner gargoyles, a short octagonal spire, a moulded two-centred arched west doorway with set-in shafts and a hoodmould with figured stops, a lancet window to the second stage, two-light belfry windows with reticulated tracery, moulded surrounds, and hoodmoulds with figured stops. The spire has two tiers of lucarnes. The nave has three, two-light windows, a one-light window at the west end, and a large three-light west window; all these windows are two-centred arched, moulded in two orders, with differing forms of reticulated tracery and hoodmoulds with differing figured stops. The south aisle, with its own pitched roof, has a diagonal buttress and three windows similar to those in the nave but differing in detail. The chancel has a diagonal buttress, a two-centred arched priest door and two windows on the south side, a gabled window and one window on the north side, all with two cinquefoil lights and tracery above, and a three-light east window with multi-foil tracery. All roofs have gable copings with kneelers and apex crosses.

Inside, the three-bay aisle arcade has short octagonal columns and responds with moulded caps, and moulded two-centred arches with hoodmoulds springing from carved moulded foliated stops, all differing. The chancel arch is in a similar style. The walls are plastered, and the windows have moulded stone reveals and hoodmoulds with differing figured stops, containing stained glass by Wailes of Newcastle. The nave and aisle have arched-braced hammer-beam roofs, while the chancel has a wagon roof. A carved wooden pulpit stands on a stone and marble base, and there is an octagonal font with an elaborate steeply swept wooden cover. The nave also features pews with trefoil tracery panels. The chancel includes choir stalls with poppy-head finials, a carved wooden altar and reredos, and flanking outer reredos under paired crocketed canopies. The church also contains imported fittings, including a two-bay parclose screen forming a Lady Chapel in the south aisle, a medieval reredos in that chapel, and a large, elaborately naturalistic metal chandelier in the nave. The church’s architects, Francis, were successful church and commercial architects of London and the Home Counties in the mid and late 19th century. The interior design and fittings reflect the ecclesiological and liturgical enthusiasm of the donor.