St John's Church, dedicated to
St John the Baptist
John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...
, is a
redundant Anglican
Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
church in the village of
Duxford
Duxford is a village in Cambridgeshire, England, about south of Cambridge. It is part of the Hundred Parishes area.
History
The village formed on the banks of the River Cam, a little below its emergence from the hills of north Essex. One of t ...
,
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...
, England. In 1967 it was recorded in the
National Heritage List for England
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...
as a designated Grade I
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
,
and is now vested in
The Churches Conservation Trust
The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...
.
The church stands on the junction of St John's Street and Green Street and is open daily, all year round to visitors.
History
The tower,
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
and
chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...
date from the late 12th century. During the following century the tower was raised and the chancel lengthened. A two-
bay
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...
chapel was added to the north side of the chancel in about 1330. Later in the century windows were added to the lowest stage of the tower and to the west end of the nave. In the 15th century the north
aisle
An aisle is a linear space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, in buildings such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parliaments, courtrooms, ...
and the porch were built, and the east window was added in the following century. In the 18th century repairs in brick were carried out. The north chapel was used as a schoolroom from the middle of the 17th century until about 1847. In 1874 the
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...
was united with the neighbouring parish of
St Peter's, and St John's became derelict.
Plans to turn the church into an RAF memorial chapel were in place in the 1940s but never passed. In 1947 the bells of St John's were removed and five of them were transferred to
St Peter's Church. The same year an application was made by the Rector of
St Peter's Church, Duxford to the
Diocese of Ely
The Diocese of Ely is a Church of England diocese in the Province of Canterbury. It is headed by the Bishop of Ely, who sits at Ely Cathedral in Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely. There is one suffragan bishop, suffragan (subordinate) bishop, the Bisho ...
to demolish the church as it had been "broken in to, defiled and misused in a great many and scandalous ways"; this was refused. An order of redundancy was granted on 19 May 1976, St John's being considered a
chapel of ease
A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...
in the parish of St Peter. The church was
vested
In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property are acquired by some Legal person, person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vest ...
in the
Churches Conservation Trust
The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...
on 26 July 1979.
The tower and the wall paintings were partially restored in 1985.
Further restoration has stalled indefinitely.
Architecture
Exterior
The church is constructed in
flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...
, pebbles and
clunch
Clunch is a traditional building material of chalky limestone rock used mainly in eastern England and Normandy. Clunch distinguishes itself from archetypal forms of limestone by being softer in character when cut, and may resemble chalk in lowe ...
, with clunch and
limestone
Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
dressings. Repairs have been carried out in brick. The flat roofs are covered in copper, the nave roof is tiled, and the spire is covered in lead. The plan consists of a nave with a north aisle, a central tower, and a chancel with a north chapel. Along the north aisle wall are
buttress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...
es and three three-light windows. The north chapel has a diagonal buttress to the east, two windows and
gargoyle
In architecture, and specifically Gothic architecture, a gargoyle () is a carved or formed Grotesque (architecture), grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing it from ...
s. In the middle stage of the tower are small round-headed windows, and the bell openings in the top stage have two lights. Its
parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...
is
battlement
A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals ...
ed, and on top of the tower is a small lead-covered spirelet.
[ The spirelet is twisted; this was caused when a flagpole was tied to it in 1897 to celebrate ]Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was officially celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the occasion of the Diamond jubilee, 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch ever to cel ...
, and it was damaged in a gale.[ The chancel east window has four lights. In the south wall of the chancel are a two-light window and a ]lancet window
A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...
, and between them is a priest's door. The south wall of the tower is supported by two large buttresses, between which is a two-light window. The south wall of the nave contains a large three-light Perpendicular
In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...
window. To the west of this is a timber-framed
Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...
porch with a gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...
and plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...
rendering including a small section of pargeting
Pargeting (or sometimes called Wall pargetting) is a decorative or waterproof plastering applied to building walls. The term, if not the practice, is particularly associated with the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. In the neighbouring co ...
. This leads to the Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norma ...
doorway, which is decorated with chevrons, and its tympanum contains a rare stepped cross.[
]
Interior
The Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norma ...
round-headed tower arches date from the 12th century. The west arch has three attached columns, and the east arch has a single column. At the base of the east arch is a pair of carved dogs. In the chapel are two ogee
An ogee ( ) is an object, element, or curve—often seen in architecture and building trades—that has a serpentine- or extended S-shape (Sigmoid curve, sigmoid). Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combination of two semicircle, semicircula ...
-headed niches and a cinquefoil
''Potentilla'' is a genus containing over 500 species of annual, biennial and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae.
Potentillas may also be called cinquefoils in English, but they have also been called five fin ...
-headed piscina
A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Lutherans and Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a pisci ...
. There is a niche with a round head on the east wall of the nave. The font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design.
For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...
dates from the 13th century, and has a plain octagonal bowl on a clunch pedestal
A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...
. The communion rail
The altar rail (also known as a communion rail or chancel rail) is a low barrier, sometimes ornate and usually made of stone, wood or metal in some combination, delimiting the chancel or the sanctuary and altar in a church, from the nave and ot ...
, dating from the late 17th century, has barley-twist baluster
A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...
s. The benches date from the late 15th century, and the floor tiles from the 18th century.[ Inside the church is a variety of wall decorations, from medieval wall paintings to ]graffiti
Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...
, some dating as late as the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.[ From the medieval period are the images of two bishops in the north aisle, two further figures thought to represent ]Christ
Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...
and the coronation of the Virgin Mary
Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...
, and fragments of a possible Christ of the Trades which depicts working implements and would remind the congregation to keep the Sabbath
In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, Ten Commandments, commanded by God to be kept as a Holid ...
holy, and that by using such working tools Christ
Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...
would be wounded in turn. There is an Agnus Dei
is the Latin name under which the "Lamb of God" is honoured within Christian liturgies descending from the historic Latin liturgical tradition, including those of Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and Anglicanism. It is the name given to a spec ...
under the east tower arch flanked on either side by angel
An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...
s. On the west wall of the chancel are depictions of saints, including a female saint (possibly St Margaret Saint Margaret, St. Margarets, or St. Margaret's may refer to:
People
In chronological order:
* Saint Margaret the Virgin of Antioch (died 304)
* Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045–1093)
* Saint Margaret of England (died 1192)
* Saint Margaret ...
) being tortured, as well as scenes from the Crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Ancient Carthag ...
and deposition of Christ
The Descent from the Cross (, ''Apokathelosis''), or Deposition of Christ, is the scene, as depicted in art, from the Gospels' accounts of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus taking Christ down from the cross after his crucifixion (John 19, ). I ...
. In the north chapel and arcade are graffiti from the time it was used as a school, some of which are in Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
. In the chancel is a long desk with copious graffiti, of particular note are two small coffins with skeletons visible inside. The most recent item in the nave is a depiction of Christ drawn by a look-out soldier during World War II.[
]
External features
In the churchyard are two tombs, one bearing dates in the 19th century, the other without an inscription, which are designated as Grade II listed buildings. The churchyard has been cleared of its headstones which now line the westernmost wall. Many had fallen or were in danger of doing so, and the yard is now in the care of Duxford Parish Council who invariably found it easier to maintain. There is a "no mow' policy in place for most of the year in certain parts of the churchyard excepting access up to and around the church. There is an abundance of snowdrops in early spring, cowslips in late spring and ox-eye daisies, grasses and orchids in the summer.
Recent years
Volunteers put on summer events at St John's including classical concerts, book launches, poetry readings and masterclasses. Since 2018, This Is My Theatre has performed live drama inside and outside, to great acclaim. For several years the church hosted an annual Advent Market. The final one took place in 2022. St John's remains consecrated and has been used many times in recent years for key parish services. Private tours are available on request, and the church has an annual visit by the village primary school, as well as the local scout group. A series of four local films were made in Duxford in 2023, one of which was called "Thoughts and Prayers", now available on YouTube.
References
Gallery
File:Duxford St John's - Chancel corbel.jpg, Tail-biting beast - north side of chancel
File:St John's Duxford - tower crossing pillars.jpg, Triple shafts of the Norman arch showing feint original decoration
File:Duxford St John - Chancel roof.jpg, Chancel roof
File:Chancel and north aisle.jpg, Chancel & north aisle from NE corner
File:St John's Church Duxford Nave.jpg, Nave with 15th century pews, Commandments board, Lord's Prayer & Apostles' Creed
File:St John's Church Duxford Solomon's Knot.jpg, "Solomon's Knot" graffiti near tower crossing
File:Duxford St John's North Aisle Wall Painting.jpg, 15th century wall paintings, possibly St Erasmus (Elmo) and St Leonard
File:St John's Church Porch and South Door.jpg, 15th century porch & south door with rare 'stepped' cross
External links
The Churches Conservation Trust, Duxford St John
St John's Church, Duxford (X)
St John's Church, Duxford (Instagram)
St John's Church, Duxford (Facebook)
British History Online - Duxford
Duxford Village Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duxford, St John's Church
Grade I listed churches in Cambridgeshire
Church of England church buildings in Cambridgeshire
English churches with Norman architecture
English Gothic architecture in Cambridgeshire
Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust