Church of St John the Evangelist

Church of St John the Evangelist

This is an Early-English style church built of coursed rubble sandstone with tooled quoins and honey-coloured limestone dressings. It comprises a nave with south porch and bellcote, chancel, and vestry with organ projection on the north side. The building has a continuous sill band and moulded cornice, with a tile roof featuring slightly swept eaves.

The most striking feature is the double bellcote positioned on the ridge between nave and chancel. This is crowned by gablets and has a string course below two lancet bell openings with a continuous impost band. A stepped buttress crowned by a gablet stands between the nave and chancel.

The south wall of the nave displays two paired lancets to the right of the porch, and a similar lancet to the left, all under continuous hood moulds. The porch itself is particularly fine, with a steeply pitched roof and coped gable on moulded kneelers. The entrance archway has continuous moulding and a string course above, with the hood mould continuing round the side walls to further archways featuring two-centred arches. The imposts of these side archways continue as the sill band of a three-light mullioned window with pointed heads.

The chancel has two tall narrow lancets to the south on the left and two shorter lancets on the right. The east wall features three tall narrow stepped lancets under a continuous hood mould, with a two-light geometrical window to the vestry on the right. The north wall of the vestry has a parapet with ramped coping and two lancets.

The organ projection on the north side features a circular sexfoil window in the north gable, below which are two small single-light windows. Its west wall contains a doorway under a two-centred arch with continuous chamfer and trefoil head, fitted with a boarded door having decorative studs and strap hinges. The south gable of the projection displays a tall stone chimney with dressed stone cap.

The north wall of the nave has three pairs of lancets similar to those on the south wall, together with a lean-to timber-framed canopy on a dwarf stone wall. This canopy has a stone tile roof and stone steps leading to the crypt. The west wall of the nave has two tall lancets under a continuous hood mould, flanked by roundels with inset quatrefoils.

The porch interior is laid with red tiles in a diamond pattern with black-tile edging. Inside the three archways are stone steps to a higher level where two stone slab benches, each supported on two moulded orthostats, are set against the side walls. The south doorway has a two-centred arch with moulded imposts incorporating a frieze of nailhead.

The nave and chancel openings have deep splays and a continuous sill band. The chancel arch is two-centred with two orders of chamfers and a hood mould with stylised stops. Below moulded capitals are two orders of attached shafts with shaft rings. The nave roof is an arched-brace design with a single tier of cusped wind braces. The chancel roof is plainer, featuring collar beams and scissor braces.

The interior contains several notable furnishings. The font, in white stone, has a square bowl with attached shafts at the corners, beneath which are four larger detached shafts from the octagonal pedestal set on a square base. The pulpit, similarly in white stone, stands on a round base above which are detached shafts, and features thinner attached shafts with a frieze of blind trefoil arches and a moulded cornice incorporating a frieze of dog tooth ornament. Plain benches occupy the nave.

The choir stalls have ends with stylised poppy heads, backs with blind trefoils, and fronts with pierced trefoil arches. The communion rail is of wood supported on Y-shaped cast iron uprights infilled with scrollwork. Double sedilia stand under two-centred arches, the central shaft of which has a waterleaf capital. The reredos is of plain marble in three panels over a frieze of foiled circles and ellipses. Stained glass in the east window was added in 1906.