Church of St John the Baptist

Details

SU 87 NW
8/33

SHOTTESBROOKE
SHOTTESBROOKE PARK
Church of St John the Baptist

11.04.72

G.V.
I

Parish church. c1337, spire restored 1757-8 following severe damage caused by a thunderstorm. Restored 1852-4 by G.E. Street. Flint with Bath stone quoins, the chancel of knapped flint, the spire stone; old tile coped gable roofs.

Cruciform plan: three bay chancel; central tower surmounted by a tall spire; north and south transepts of one bay each; two bay north and south porches. Decorated style. Moulded string round the building at window cill level, buttresses on all sides, diagonal to porches.

Windows of flowing tracery and of two lights except east window which is five lights and the three-light windows of the north and south transepts. The window on the west end of nave has geometrical tracery.

Tower and spire: two stages with moulded string between and embattled parapet with string below and decayed head-gargoyles at the angles. The ringing chamber has two, small, trefoiled openings on the south, and the bell-chamber a pointed window of two, trefoiled lights with quatrefoil tracery in each wall. An octagonal stair turret on the north-west corner. Octagonal spire with weathercock, and with large, stone, lucarnes at the foot, in its cardinal faces.

Chancel: north wall has two windows. To the left of these, a doorway, now blocked, with trefoiled head. East wall has a five-light window and the south wall three windows.

North transept: a three-light window on the north wall, and a two-light window in the east and west walls.

South transept: (now a vestry and organ chamber) windows similar to north transept.

Nave: north and south fronts similar with two, two-light windows in each with an entrance porch between. Porches similar with pointed openings with continuously moulded jambs in their gable walls and small ogee-trefoiled lights in the side walls. The western end of the nave contains a larger doorway with similar detail, with a three-light window over.

Interior. plastered. Collar purlin roofs with plain crown posts braced four ways. Chancel has barrel roof. On the south wall of the chancel is a piscina with credence bracket and cinquefoiled basin in range with three sedilia, with trefoiled, ogee heads, cusped panels in the spandrels. The backs of the sedilia are panelled, and are carried up into mock vaulted heads. There is another piscina in the south transept, with a trefoiled-ogee head, and a cinquefoiled basin above which is a credence shelf. C14 octagonal font with crocketed and pinnacled buttresses at the angles, panelled sides with trefoiled-ogee heads having crocketed labels surmounted by carved finials. C19 pulpit.

Monuments: a fine C14 double tomb recess in the north transept, across the whole of the north wall, cut in chalk and stone, with a panelled base and embattled cornice. Built against the north wall of the chancel is a long alabaster box in the shape of a coffin in which lies the carved figure of a man, wearing a long garment and holding his hands in prayer. On the top are two brasses with inscriptions in Latin.

Brasses: large late C14 in floor of nave with the full length figure of a priest and a layman, under two crocketed and finialled canopies having pinnacled buttresses on either side. Of similar date are the remains of a large brass in the floor of the north transept with the figure of a woman in the centre wearing a loose flowing dress. In the north-east corner of the floor in the north transept, a brass inscribed in black letters to Richard Gyll; above the inscription is a figure of a man standing with his hands in prayer, wearing early C16 armour. Also in the floor of the north transept is a brass to Thames Noke d.1567 and his three wives, with an inscription in black letters.

Glass: some original pieces in the north-east window of the chancel and in the west window of the same wall is a shield on a background of black and white flowered glass. The head of the west window in the north transept is also original and contains a quartered shield of France and England. The east window is by Hardman.

Listing NGR: SU8414777115

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

41120

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Berkshire, (1975), 216
Ditchfield, P H, Page, W, The Victoria History of the County of Berkshire, (1923)

Websites
British Geological Survey, Strategic Stone Study, accessed 05/02/2020 from https://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/buildingStones/StrategicStoneStudy/EH_atlases.html

End of official list entry

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