Church Of St John The Baptist

Church of St John the Baptist, Yeovil

A church of late 14th-century date, built in limestone with Ham stone dressings and lead roofs. The building is of cruciform plan with a south porch and vestry (added 1915), comprising a single-bay sanctuary, two-bay choir, crossing, four-bay nave, and a west tower. North and south choir and nave aisles flank the main body, with projecting transepts. The design is in the Early Perpendicular style, though the crypt below is Decorated, though not necessarily of earlier construction.

The exterior displays a three-tiered plinth with buttresses of double offset terminating in pinnacles set between bays. Corner buttresses are set back. Windows extend across the full width of each bay as five-light openings terminating in two-centre arches with reticulated Perpendicular transitional tracery. A string course runs below a slender arch-panelled parapet with roll-mouldings; parapets are angled to the gable ends. The second bays to the choir are blank. At bay three of the north aisle, a pointed arched doorway has been cut into the bottom of the window. The south porch opposite on the south nave aisle is a half-height two-bay extension in the style of a rain building, with a probably 19th-century doorway beneath a crocketted label mould to a pointed archway and a swept sculptured panel in a niche. Stair turrets rise at the east outside corners of both transepts.

The west tower stands 28 metres high in four stages with set-back offset corner buttresses, capped by openwork balustrading that may date to the 19th century. Two-light late 14th-century windows appear on all sides at bell-ringing and bell-chamber levels, the latter featuring fine pierced stonework grilles. A stair turret to the north-west corner terminates in a windvane. The plain west doorway is flanked by triangular shafts, with a west window displaying Perpendicular tracery. An iron Latin cross set into the south-east corner of the parapet may date from the 15th century. The tower contains a chiming clock (without a clock face), a Sanctus bell, and a peal of ten bells. The east window displays similar tracery to the west window, and the parapet is crowned with a stone cross.

Internally, the south porch is of late 19th-century construction. The nave and aisles are lofty, with the apexes of the arcades positioned close to wall-plate level. The columns are slender with alternate order hollowed, bearing small impost capitals on the outer and riddle of the five orders. Wall shafts rise to the aisle and chapel walls. The tower and crossing arches are unpanelled and set higher than the nave arcades. The trussed ribbed rafters of the barrel roofs and nearly all the bosses are said to be original, with the west bay of the north aisle containing some ancient timbers. Colouring has been applied to the bosses and principal timber members throughout.

The crypt beneath the choir contains four quadripartite vaults in early to mid 14th-century style, with a central octagonal pier and moulded corbels to the walls. The entrance doorway on the north wall of the chancel has a crocketted ogee arch with double cusps and pinnacled side pilasters.

Fittings of note include a late 13th-century font, an outstanding English brass lectern of around 1450 inscribed with a figure of a monk on a stand, and sculptured Lenton veil brackets on the north and south chancel walls. Memorial brasses commemorate Penne (1519) and Hawker (1696). Many 18th-century memorials are present, notably to Reverend J. Phelips (died 1766), Newman of Barwick (died 1790), and Harbin (died 1704).

The church is the earliest in Yeovil, dating from around 950. It was rebuilt between 1380 and 1400, probably by William Wynford, the master mason of Wells Cathedral. Major restoration occurred between 1851 and 1860.