Church Of Saint John

The Church of St John is a building of group value, dating from the 14th century with a tower from the early 15th century. The chancel was restored in 1870, while the nave, porch, and tower were re-roofed and partly rebuilt between 1881 and 1883. The church is constructed of coursed sandstone on a plinth with quoins, and has a slate roof. The west tower features diagonal buttresses and a recessed pointed door beneath a hood-mould to the western elevation. Above the door is a 3-light window with panel tracery and a stopped pointed hood-mould, the stops carved as shields bearing the traces of emblems of the Hospitallers and the Hastings family. The tower also has 2-light transomed bell openings with louvres beneath stopped pointed hood-moulds on each face. A parapet, supported by a corbel table decorated with motifs, is carved with blind tracery. The coped, gabled porch has a pointed opening surmounted by a reset foliate cross and contains a pointed chamfered doorway with a pointed piscina to its right. The nave and chancel have 2-light pointed windows with quatrefoils in the heads. An ogee-arched priest's door is found in the chancel. There are two 2-light windows similar to those on the south side of the church, and one 3-light flat-headed window, all reset, on the north side. A blocked round-arched north door also exists. The east window is of 3 lights with reticulated tracery. A cavetto moulded eaves cornice tops the building, with a coped gable surmounted by a cross. Fragments of carved stone have been reset into the north and south walls. Inside, the pointed tower arch is of two chamfered orders springing from moulded corbels. A 15th century octagonal font sits on a cylindrical pedestal. Piscinae are located in the south wall of the nave and chancel.