The Church of St. John the Baptist - Trust Annual Report 1981
St John the Baptist - also illustrating some of the ten St John's Street houses
and the importance of scale, chimneys and other details
Standing foursquare at the centre of its original parish the church of St. John the Baptist, with its grey battlemented tower, provides a functioning historic heart to an area of the city in which the Trust has taken a continuing interest since 1975. In its architecture and furnishings it presents an accumulation of history which most ancient churches lost in the process of over-zealous restoration during the 19th Century.
The outside of the church is mostly work of the 15th Century, the majority of the windows have good perpendicular tracery, the exception being a large earlier window filled with geometrical decorated tracery in the south wall at the east end: a splendid architectural jewel. Inside the open wooden roofs, over nave and aisles of almost equal width, are supported on arcades of rough pointed arches borne on heavy cylindrical columns which have scalloped or fluted capitals dating back to the end of the 12th Century. Flanking the chancel are unusual 14th Century oak screens, and across the church stretches a 15th Century screen which supported the rood loft, the opening to which can still be seen high up in the south aisle wall. The font and pulpit are also 15th Century work. On the north wall can be seen the remains of fine 13th Century wall paintings and ranged around the walls are many fine memorials. The interior also houses a Royal Coat of Arms of 1774 (Charles II) and a splendid brass octopus chandelier (1779). In some of the windows are fragments of ancient glass and in others good 19th Century stained glass.
How happy William Morris would be to see it all. Here he would find little need to gnash his teeth and rail against the destruction of the evidence of the past, which in 1877 led him to found the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
Sadly this unique and beautiful church is now in need of quite considerable repair and the cost of the work required will be beyond the capacity of its present congregation. The Trust has offered its services to the Church to provide advice, and to assist in any way it can in fund-raising activities. Although the full cost is daunting, it should be possible to raise sufficient money for a start to be made with the most urgent repairs.