Church of St John is a Grade II listed building in the Somerset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 25 February 1985. Church.
Church of St John
- WRENN ID
- stony-balcony-wind
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Somerset
- Constituency
- Taunton and Wellington MP: Gideon Amos (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 25 February 1985
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St John, Durston
- OS grid reference
- ST 291 281
- Coordinates
- 51.04794, -3.01269
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St John is a parish church that was rebuilt in 1853 in the Early English style, having been enlarged in 1815. The tower was restored in 1897. The building is constructed from Lias random rubble with Ham stone dressings and has slate roofs with coped verges. It features a three-bay nave, transepts, a chancel, a west tower, and a south porch.
The three-stage crenellated tower has finials and set-back buttresses that rise to string courses. The west face includes a three-light trefoil bell opening, a trefoil-headed lancet, and a three-light west window above a moulded test door. There is a crenellated northeast stair turret and two-light windows flanking the gabled porch, which has a collar beam roof and moulded surrounds, along with 19th-century double doors. The transept has stepped buttresses and a three-light south window, while the chancel features a two-light south window and a three-light east window. The north front has a two-light window, and the vestry to the right has a three-light window above a roof door. The nave contains three two-light windows.
Inside, the church is ashlar faced and features a four-centred tower arch with a trefoil-headed panelled screen, a 19th-century chancel arch with unmoulded jambs and a moulded archivault, and arch-braced roofs supported by foliage corbels. The transepts have compartment ceilings. The fittings are from the mid-19th century, and the pulpit is accessed from a door in the west wall of the vestry. A memorial tablet in grey and white marble with a draped urn on the south wall of the tower commemorates Thomas Grey, who died in 1820 and funded the church's restoration in 1815. The altar table, said to date from 1635, appears to be late 19th century.
Local climate
Church of St John receives an average of 810 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 50% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 58% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 32 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 58% of listed buildings. Of these, 13 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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