Church of St John the Evangelist

Church of St John the Evangelist

A large parish church built in the Geometric Gothic Revival style. The building is constructed of coursed Old Red sandstone rubble with Bath-stone dressings that create a decorative polychrome effect, particularly visible on window surrounds, voussoirs, quoins and extensive banding, especially on the tower. Hoodmoulds with stops—some of which are said to depict local personalities—and a continuous stepped sill-band run throughout. The roof is steeply pitched Welsh slate with stone corbels and apex crosses.

The west front is wide and elaborate. A tall tower rises at the south-east, adjoining the south aisle with a narrow south porch. The nave has a west porch and north aisle, with three main units each having separate pitched roofs of nearly the same height and width. The chancel extends eastward without clear separation from the nave.

The tower is three-storeyed with crocketed pinnacles and gargoyles at each corner. It was originally intended to support a spire. Blind arcading ornaments the parapet, and tiered buttresses with offsets flank the corners. A polygonal staircase tower projects at the south-west, rising above a deep battered plinth. The belfry features tall paired pointed stone latticed lights. Below that, very narrow paired lights are interrupted by a platband. The lower storey has a tall west window.

The west gable of the nave displays a very decorative long window with paired lights, each having trefoil tracery heads and separated by a cusped niche. A large tracery roundel made of small roundels set within a cusped star sits above. The projecting west porch has a steeply pitched roof with a blind roundel in the apex. Its entrance is a wide pointed arched moulded opening with short columns set on a flight of steps, flanked by small gabled buttresses at right angles. The doorway is cusped.

The large north-west window has similar cusped roundel tracery. Below it is a flat-roofed embattled entrance porch to the north aisle with a side door. The south porch matches the west porch in design. South aisle windows have two slender lights and a cusped tracery roundel; a buttress divides off the east bay. The south-east window resembles the north-west window. The east window is the most elaborate: five lights with a complex tracery design incorporating roundels and cinquefoils. The entrance to the remodelled north aisle is at the north-east. North windows are similar to the south but positioned hard against the boundary.

The interior has a steeply pitched boarded roof with scissor trusses, painted side panels and grid ventilators. A four-bay north aisle arcade and three-bay south arcade feature pointed arches with hoodmoulds, block corbels and bulbous capitals. The north aisle is now divided off to form an enclosed room with a low ceiling; the scissor truss open roof is visible above. The south aisle has a high plain west archway with a pyramidal buttress adjacent, leading to the baptistry and south entrance, with a timber grid to the ceiling. The font, designed by Seddon in Geometric style, has a hexagonal bowl on a short stem with pyramidal panels to the plinth. A door at the south-west leads to the tower.

The chancel arch is wide, high and lightly moulded. The chancel features fine stained glass in the east and south-east windows. The east window, originally made in 1865 by Chance Brothers and Co and restored after bomb damage in 1952, contains elaborate iconography including the Ascension, major scenes from the Life of Christ and figures of the Evangelists. The south-east window, dating to 1873 and made by Samuel Evans, depicts scenes from the life of St John the Evangelist. Other windows contain plain diamond quarries. An unusual mosaic floor covers the chancel, and coloured encaustic tiles ornament the sanctuary. An aumbry recess lies to the north and wooden sedilia to the south. The organ at the north is by Norman and Beard, dating to 1918. Most of the chancel and sanctuary furnishings are in light wood and date from the 1950s restoration.