Description

LLANWARNE CP - SO 52 NW

3/43 Church of St John the Baptist

GV II*

Ruins of former parish church. Mainly C13 and C14 with later north chapel, south porch and chancel. Coursed sandstone rubble and sandstone ashlar, roofless except for stone slate coverings to tower. Four-bay nave, two-bay chancel, west tower, south nave aisle, north chapel to nave and south porch. Tower is late C14 or early C15; embattled and of three stages with rectangular newel projection to east end of north side with loops to west face, diagonal buttresses to north-west and south- west, stages divided by string courses; the first stage below the lowest string is constructed of thinly coursed rubble, has a segmentally-headed door on the south side and a chamfered loop with a central iron bar to the west face; the second stage is ashlar with a single lancet in the centre of the south and west sides; the top stage has square-headed tre- foiled and ogeed paired lights to bell-chamber on north, south and west sides with a single light of the same design on the east side; the string above dividing the top stage from the embattled parapet has two projecting waterspouts to the north, south and west faces (the west one on the south side is missing); the roof of the newel is pyramidal. Nave has two windows each of two lights with Y-tracery on the north wall west of the north chapel and to their west, beyond a dislodged buttress, a large window with a round, possibly C18, head. North chapel has a re-set 2- light window with Y-tracery in its north wall and a chamfered lancet in the east wall. Chancel has a 2-centred east window formerly of two lights with a later label and stops above; the east window of the south wall is round headed, again perhaps C18, the west window beyond a low priests' doorway with a 2-centred head, has two lights with ogee heads and sexfoil tracery above. South aisle has at the east end a large 3-light window with trefoil heads to each light and ogeed quatrefoil tracery above; the three matching windows in the south wall and at the west end are similar but of two lights like the westernmost window of the chancel. South porch is early C17 with a round-headed outer arch and kneelers to the south verges; the inner arch, above the former south door, is also C17 with a depressed elliptical head and corbels, noted as Ionic brackets in RCHM. Interior has four-bay arcade separating the nave from the south aisle with octagonal columns and responds carrying round arches with double chamfers. Nave floor has been raised so that a chamfered 2-centred doorway into the tower is half buried, similarly the large 2-centred chamfered arch to the north chapel now springs from about two feet above ground level. Chancel has piscina with inner and outer centred heads and square drain, interior of priest's doorway has shouldered jambs rising to a square head, several illegible floor slabs and a brick chest tomb with stone hipped capping for Watson Joseph Thornton, Rector, died 1855. South aisle has on the east wall an illegible early C19 wall monument and on the south wall, near the junction with the east wall, an early C17 wall monument framed by Ionic columns and strapwork; on the adjacent south window cill is a tapered slab with intersecting geometrical pattern. The church was abandoned in 1864 for the new Christchurch (qv) because of the flooding of The Gamber, a nearby brook. (Information in the churchyard; RCHM Vol I, p 177-8).

Listing NGR: SO5061228222

External Links

• Wikidata Q17539073

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Recommended Books

• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)