Church of St. John the Baptist, Slebech, Pembrokeshire

History

A most ambitious early C19 rebuilding of St John's Church, on a new site; commenced in the time of the Rev. James Williams and completed in the time of the Rev. W H Landen. The new site beside the Haverfordwest turnpike road was chosen for its landscape potential, though isolated from any settlement. The project was strongly supported and largely funded by Baron and Baroness de Rutzen of Slebech Park, but was also patronised by many of their numerous aristocratic friends headed by Queen Adelaide and the Duchess of Kent.

The decision to abandon the old church and to rebuild was taken at a Vestry meeting in April 1835, but immediately ran into objections from Sir Richard Philipps of Picton Castle. This led to a Consistory Court hearing and although the dispute was resolved in favour of proceeding, Sir Richard refused to compensate the project for the expense or to support it in any way. He was offered a family vault and a private pew, as in the old church, with a fireplace. A design was commissioned from J H Good jnr, the cost of which was expected to be about £5-6000. A grant from the ICBS of £200 and a loan of £1250 from the Public Works Loans Commissioners were obtained, but most of the cost appears to have been borne by the Baron and Baroness directly. The foundation stone was laid on the 3rd October 1838. Two names are on record as builder: John Cooper (mentioned in 1839) and John Edmund. William Owen, architect, of Haverfordwest had some connection with the project; the plans at Lambeth are signed by him as surveyor.

The new church was not consecrated until January 1848. Bishop Thirlwall declined to consecrate the churchyard also because it was not walled around, and it remained unconsecrated until 1891.

Some monuments taken from the old church were installed at the commencement of the new church and others in 1904.

In 1990 St. John's was closed as a dangerous structure. Some glass and fittings have since been removed.

Exterior

The church with its prominent spire and its pinnacled outline is sited to excellent effect on a slight bend in the Narberth to Haverfordwest road so that, whether one is travelling eastwards or westwards, its spire is the focus of the scene from a distance and the road appears to have been diverted to sweep round the site. The church is, furthermore, oriented with its liturgical E to the NE, so that when reached the building is seen to lie diagonally to the road and the effect is even more striking. (In this description conventional orientation is assumed.)

The layout is a conventional cruciform with a W tower and octagonal spire. There is a nave, chancel, two transepts and a NE vestry. Beneath the chancel is a crypt. The church is entered through the tower. The design is in a free Early English style. The masonry is of grey limestone ashlar throughout, generally with a pecked finish and some chiselling. At the N side it has suffered some red staining probably from contact with an inferior backing stone. The roofs are of slate, with large ogee gutters over a corbelled cornice.

The tower is of three storeys, defined by string courses. The openings to each storey are given equilateral pointed arches. The belfry openings have louvres. There are large crossed buttresses at the corners. The tower rises to a parapet with octagonal spirelets at the corners. The spire is octagonal. At its base it has single spire lights on all four sides, that to the E being a doorway.

The main entrance is a deep opening of two orders in the W of the tower. The hoodmould terminates in heads representing Charles Frederick and Mary Dorothea de Rutzen, the patrons. Their crest is carved on a trefoil above.

The nave appears on N and S elevations as four bays, divided by deep buttresses with two offsets. The upper offsets are gabled and the lower are sloping. Three bays have tall narrow equilateral-pointed windows, their hoodmoulds terminating in balls of stiff-leaf ornament or in heads, the latter presumably conventional rather than portraits. The sills of the windows are united by a string course. The E bay on each side takes a transept. The nave terminates with a weathered coped E gable with a stone cross-finial. There are similar copings to the portions of the nave W wall abutting the tower. At the extremities of the gables there are octagonal spirelets.

The transepts and chancel are detailed similarly to the nave, but the transept windows are in pairs and the E window is triple with the centre lancet higher. Above the latter is a trefoil shaped ventilator and the date 1838. The E finial cross is similar to that of the nave. At the E end there is a path sloping down to the crypt, the door of which is placed centrally. The transepts have generally similar gables but the coping terminates in a cross approximating to the Maltese form. The vestry is in the NE angle, with a single window facing E and a door in deep reveals facing N.

Interior

At the time of inspection (1996) the building was closed as a dangerous structure and the interior not examined. It was renowned for its fine monuments and heraldic displays. As in the old church, the N transept was the Picton chapel and the S transept the Slebech chapel.

The monuments and features included a C15 monument to Sir John Wogan and his wife, C16 and C18 Barlow memorials, and important early C19 decorative floor tiles, including de Rutzen arms and symbols of the four evangelists.

Many of the floor tiles are said to remain in situ; they are described as red and yellow encaustic tiles, manufactured by Walter Chamberlain of Worcester to Samuel Wright's patent. They covered 85% of the floor, excluding only the sanctuary and transepts. The design featured sets of four tiles with the arms of Philipps and de Rutzen: the boar's head of de Rutzen with the arms of Philipps on an escutcheon, supported by a gryphon and a lion and surmounted by a coronet. There was also a set of sixteen tiles at the foot of the altar steps, with a sun and dove design. In 1994 it was reported that about 250 tiles had been removed.

Reasons for Listing

Listed as a thorough-going early Victorian gothic design, sited with landscape impact; St John's is the most ambitiously designed church of its time in the county and of considerable interest for the history of patronage.

External Links

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