Church of Saint John

The Church of Saint John is a building of unusual design, likely dating to the 18th century. It is constructed of random rubble stone with freestone dressings, featuring slate roofs with red tile cresting and coped gables. The nave has an octagonal shape, topped with an octagonal roof that incorporates leaded lucarnes and a fleche. A bellcote is situated on the chancel roof.

The plan is distinctive, comprising an octagonal nave from which project, at the cardinal points, a western narthex or ante-nave, transepts with clasping buttresses, and a chancel. These elements are linked by single-storeyed lean-to bays. Organ chambers and vestries are located to the north and south of the chancel. A gabled porch, containing an arched entrance, projects from the lean-to aisle of the western narthex. The transepts feature arcaded lancet windows, and above them, a wide four-light decorated window. Stepped three-light clerestory windows are positioned in the angle blocks and western narthex, which also has a four-light plate traceried west window. A five-light decorated east window illuminates the chancel, while high-set plate traceried windows are found to the north and south. Paired lancets with a quatrefoil feature in the gabled organ chamber to the south.

Inside, the nave is large and open, with a ribbed, octagonal roof, surmounted by an open-work timber lantern. The ceiling is boarded and panelled, with the main ribs carried on wall posts. A coved, ribbed and boarded roof covers the chancel. A wooden reredos, originally from Saint Thomas’s Church, is present. A circa 1890 open-work panelled wood pulpit sits on a stone base. The chancel features a mosaic floor. Stained glass is found in the east window (by Goddard and Gibbs, 1970), the northeast angle of the nave (by Christopher Charles Powell, 1932), and the southeast angle (by Alfred O Hemming, 1906). A southwest window and the west window, both dating from 1886, are in a similar style to the Hemming window, though the artist is uncredited. Unusual light fittings with cast-iron standards, scrolled decoration, and straight brackets carrying lights are present in the nave. The western ante-nave has single arches to the north and south, and a canted three-bay arcade that divides it from the main nave, with high central arch sprung from corbelled wall posts, and lower arches on polished granite shafts straddling the angles with the transepts. A low timber screen now separates the western bay from the nave and the chancel is sprung from corbelled wall posts, and also forms the central bay of a canted arcade with lower arches across the angles with the transepts.