Church of St. John the Baptist

Church of St. John the Baptist

This church, with its prominent spire and pinnacled outline, sits to striking effect on a slight bend in the Narberth to Haverfordwest road. Whether approached from east or west, the spire dominates the view from a distance, and the road appears to have been diverted to sweep around the site. The church is oriented with its liturgical east facing northeast, so that when reached the building lies diagonally to the road, creating an even more dramatic effect.

The layout is a conventional cruciform with a west tower and octagonal spire. The building comprises a nave, chancel, two transepts, and a northeast vestry, with a crypt beneath the chancel. The church is entered through the tower. The design follows a free Early English style throughout, executed in grey limestone ashlar with a generally pecked finish and some chiselling. The north side shows red staining, probably from contact with inferior backing stone. The roofs are of slate with large ogee gutters over a corbelled cornice.

The tower rises in three storeys defined by string courses, with equilateral pointed arches marking the openings to each level. The belfry openings have louvres. Large crossed buttresses sit at the corners. The tower rises to a parapet with octagonal spirelets at the corners, topped by an octagonal spire. At the base of the spire are single spire lights on all four sides, with the eastern opening serving as a doorway.

The main entrance is a deep two-order opening in the west of the tower. The hoodmould terminates in carved heads representing Charles Frederick and Mary Dorothea de Rutzen, the patrons, with their crest carved on a trefoil above.

The nave appears as four bays on the north and south elevations, divided by deep buttresses with two offsets. The upper offsets are gabled and the lower are sloping. Three bays contain tall narrow equilateral-pointed windows whose hoodmoulds terminate either in balls of stiff-leaf ornament or in carved heads, the latter appearing conventional rather than portraiture. The window sills are united by a string course. The eastern bay on each side opens to a transept. The nave terminates with a weathered coped east gable bearing a stone cross-finial. Similar copings appear on the portions of the nave west wall abutting the tower, with octagonal spirelets at the gable extremities.

The transepts and chancel follow similar detailing to the nave, but the transept windows are paired, whilst the east window is triple with the centre lancet set higher. Above this stands a trefoil-shaped ventilator inscribed with the date 1838. The east finial cross matches that of the nave. A path slopes down from the east end to the crypt entrance, which is placed centrally. The transepts feature similar gables with coping terminating in crosses approximating the Maltese form. The vestry in the northeast angle has a single window facing east and a door in deep reveals facing north.

The church was closed as a dangerous structure at the time of inspection in 1996, and the interior was not examined. It was renowned for its fine monuments and heraldic displays. The north transept functioned as the Picton chapel and the south transept as the Slebech chapel.

Among the notable monuments and features were a 15th-century monument to Sir John Wogan and his wife, 16th and 18th-century Barlow memorials, and important early 19th-century decorative floor tiles, including de Rutzen arms and symbols of the four evangelists. Many floor tiles are said to remain in situ. They are described as red and yellow encaustic tiles, manufactured by Walter Chamberlain of Worcester to Samuel Wright's patent, covering eighty-five percent of the floor excluding only the sanctuary and transepts. The design featured sets of four tiles with the arms of Philipps and de Rutzen: the boar's head of de Rutzen with the arms of Philipps on an escutcheon, supported by a gryphon and a lion and surmounted by a coronet. A set of sixteen tiles at the foot of the altar steps displayed a sun and dove design. By 1994 approximately two hundred and fifty tiles had been removed.