Church of St John the Baptist is a Grade I listed building in the Vale of Glamorgan local planning authority area, Wales. First listed on 22 February 1963. House.
Church of St John the Baptist
- WRENN ID
- hidden-cinder-summer
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- Vale of Glamorgan
- Constituency
- Vale of Glamorgan MP: Kanishka Narayan (Lab)
- Country
- Wales
- Date first listed
- 22 February 1963
- Type
- House
- Address
- Church of St John the Baptist, Llanblethian, Cowbridge with Llanblethian
- OS grid reference
- SS 985 740
- Coordinates
- 51.4561, -3.46225
- Source
- Cadw listing
Description
The Church of St John the Baptist is a Grade I listed building constructed from local stone and featuring slate roofs. It includes a chancel, an aisleless nave, a south chapel with an adjacent south porch, and a west tower. The church showcases both Decorated and Perpendicular architectural styles. The tower consists of two stages, with stepped diagonal buttresses and a polygonal northeast stair turret. It has a crenellated parapet with corner pinnacles, three-light bell-chamber openings, and a three-light Perpendicular window situated above the west doorway. To the left of the gabled south porch, there is a two-light window made of ashlar, and the doorway is adorned with a hoodmould flanked by head corbels. Old memorials are set above stone benches, and the inner doorway is offset to the left. The south chapel features a three-light Decorated window and a two-light window to the east, with a sundial positioned above it. The south wall of the chancel has trefoil lancets, and there is a three-light Perpendicular window at the east end. The north side of the nave has two two-light windows.
Inside, the nave roof, which dates from the late medieval period, has been restored and features arch-braces, wind-braces, and a collar purlin. In the north wall, there is a doorway leading to a removed rood loft, which has an old door that may date back to the 15th century. The south chapel contains a screen with an organ and a vaulted crypt that was once used as an ossuary, along with a mutilated effigy set in a Gothic-arched recess. The chancel is low with a late 19th-century chancel arch and roof, and a 20th-century reredos depicting the Supper at Emmaus. The tall tower arch features an inner chamfer supported by figured corbels. There is a medieval tub font, and memorials are arranged beneath the tower, including a tablet dedicated to the parents of Sir Leoline Jenkins, erected in 1763.
Local climate
Church of St John the Baptist sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,170 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 90% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 94% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 19 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 80% of listed buildings. Of these, 7 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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