Church of St John

Church of St John

A parish church built in mixed Early English and Geometric styles. The building comprises a nave, chancel, south porch, north vestry, and a steeple positioned at the south-east angle of the nave.

The exterior is constructed of coursed, rock-faced stone beneath steeply pitched slate roofs. The walls are detailed with string courses, plinths, and stepped angle buttresses. The eaves are corbelled with foliate bosses, and the copings are raised and finished with stepped edges.

The south porch is a substantial feature, positioned offset to the left of centre of the nave and flanked by paired lancet windows. It has a wide pointed-arched entrance containing hollow mouldings and planked double doors. The arch head is decorated with a trefoil at the apex and paired trefoils to the sides. The porch interior is simple, with recesses for the paired trefoiled lights.

The west face of the nave displays a large four-light window in Geometric style, with cusped lancets and cusped trefoils and quatrefoils above, topped by a trefoil in the gable apex. The north wall of the nave contains four pairs of lancet windows, separated by angle buttresses. These windows, like the others throughout the building, have sandstone dressings and hoodmoulds with end stops, mostly arranged as paired lancets.

The south side of the chancel is divided into three bays by stepped buttresses. The outer bays have paired lancets. The inner bay contains a pointed-arched priest's door with a sandstone surround and hollow mouldings. The arch head cuts somewhat awkwardly into the base of an adjacent lancet window, though both are contemporary. The chancel's east window is a four-light design in Geometric style with cusped lancets, trefoils, and a sexfoil above, dedicated to William Rees Lloyd (d. 1919). Flanking this window are two blind lancets inscribed with biblical texts. The north wall of the chancel bears a memorial plaque to W. Darby, son of the rector, who died in 1915 during the Great War.

The north vestry is a lean-to structure with three trefoiled lights in a heavy surround and a planked door at its east end with a shouldered lintel.

The steeple is a short, three-stage structure with angle buttresses to the south and east. The first stage contains a single lancet. The second stage has a shorter lancet with a clock above, set within a sandstone surround inscribed 'watch and pray', and a second lancet on the east face. The angles of the second stage are slightly rounded, finished with sandstone broach stops. The top stage is octagonal and built of sandstone, with lancet-shaped louvres between colonnettes beneath steep gables decorated with pierced trefoils. The spire rises above this.

The interior of the nave is undivided, spanned by a seven-bay roof with an eastern bay of greater width. The roof is a high hammer-beam structure supported on corbels. Alternate corbels are positioned at wall-plate level and bear gold-painted head bosses. Pierced cinquefoils are set above the collar trusses. The chancel arch is tall, with several orders of mouldings, the inner ones supported by corbels with head bosses beneath—one depicting a man, the other a woman.

An octagonal pier with a capital stands behind the pulpit and supports the north-west angle of the tower. Pointed arches with chamfered reveals spring from this pier, forming the north and west internal sides of the steeple. The stone pulpit is polygonal with blind arches, supported on a short octagonal pedestal. The font is octagonal with incised quatrefoils, set on a stem composed of four columns rising from a large octagonal plinth.

The chancel roof consists of three bays with arched-brace trusses supported on plain corbels. A pointed arch leads to the vestry doorway. The tracery lights of the west window and south chancel windows contain stained glass in geometric designs. The east window is also fitted with stained glass dedicated to William Rees Lloyd.