Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist

This is an Anglican parish church located on the west side of Bristol Road in Pawlett. The building dates from the 12th century onwards, with significant works undertaken in the 13th, 15th, 17th and 18th centuries, and was restored in 1915.

The church is constructed of freestone with 20th-century roughcast rendering. The roofs are covered with lead sheeting (nave, with ornamental lead cresting at the eaves, probably 18th-century) and plain and double-Roman tiles elsewhere. The architectural style is a mix of Early English and Perpendicular, with a Norman doorway on the south side.

The building comprises a nave, chancel, north and south transepts, a large north vestry, a south porch, and a west tower. The three-stage embattled tower has buttresses with offsets, with two diagonal buttresses to the west. Carved heads appear below the parapet. The bell-chamber windows are plain, two-light and square-headed, restored in 1734, with some remains of tracery to the east. A large stair-turret on the south side has a stepped pyramidal stone roof. The main tower roof is pyramidal and dates from 1900, with a large weathercock of 1731. The west window is a three-light Perpendicular design. The west doorway dates from the 16th or 17th century and has a studded plank door. A clock of 1938 is installed.

The nave has three bays with two pilaster buttresses to the south. The north wall contains a three-light 15th-century window with square head and stopped label, each light with trefoil heads, and a blocked north doorway. The south side has two 15th-century windows, each of three lights—one with pointed head and Perpendicular tracery, the other with square head and foiled lights.

The gabled south porch is 15th-century with two-stage angle buttresses. The outer doorway has a moulded head and plain chamfered jambs, with ribbed and studded doors and good iron strap hinges. The interior is benched on a flagstone floor. The inner doorway is Norman, dating to around 1120, with three orders of moulding: the inner with lozenge ornament, the second with chevron decoration, and the outer with carved heads and no columns (this feature is probably a re-set chancel arch).

The south transept contains a 13th-century three-light window to the south (a lancet with 15th-century head) and a single-light east window. The north transept has traceried 14th-century three-light windows to the north and a single-light east window.

The chancel is 13th-century, a single bay, but was rebuilt in 1779. It has two renewed triple-lancet windows. The vestry features a 15th or 16th-century hollow-moulded three-light stone mullioned window and a narrow single-light east window.

The interior is plastered with flagstone floors throughout. The nave has a 15th-century barrel ceiling with thin ribs, replastered in 1728. The porch also has a barrel ceiling, 15th-century and replastered in 1728. The transepts have further 15th-century barrel roofs. The chancel ceiling dates from 1779 and is barrel-shaped with three large panels enclosed by wreathing in relief. The vestry has a plastered barrel ceiling over a brick floor. The chancel and tower arches are 15th-century; the arches to the transepts are plain and 13th-century.

The church contains a Norman font with a 17th-century tester, and two 13th-century piscinae. There is a good 15th-century inner south door, ribbed and studded with original ironwork. Upper and lower entrances to the rood with stair survive, and there is a 15th-century rood screen with a very richly carved frieze featuring vine decoration.

A set of Jacobean box pews furnishes the nave, transepts and chancel, restored and altered in 1915, with some renewed in conforming style. The pulpit is Jacobean, and the reader is made up of reused Jacobean pews. Painted texts from the 17th century appear on the north and south aisles. Seventeenth-century communion rails surround the altar on three sides, with adjacent panelling of 18th-century date featuring fold-down benches. A communion table dated 1678, and a fragment of 17th-century carving, are preserved in the vestry. Seventeenth-century doors connect the vestry to the chancel and to a 20th-century boiler room. Royal Arms dated 1708 are displayed. Mid-19th-century decalogue plaques and a reredos with the Lord's Prayer have been added. An organ of 1873 is installed.

The majority of windows contain clear glass with leaded lights and iron saddle and stanchion bars. A south window to the nave contains a single piece of medieval stained glass. There are two late 19th-century stained glass windows and three 20th-century stained glass windows. A small 19th-century strong box is housed in the vestry.