St John the Baptist

Introduction

The nave of St John the Baptist in Dartmouth was built in 1868-9 and the chancel in 1873-6, designed by architect JA Hansom.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built of local limestone rubble with Bathstone dressings, some replaced with concrete in the late C20, and has a slate roof. The church has a gallery at the street end and an apsidal western chancel. The exterior is in minimal early Decorated style with a tall gable end on a chamfered plinth to the street. The interior has a 4-bay roof of open scissor-braced trusses and a tall chancel arch springing from slender columns standing on corbels.

The church has a stone altar with blind Gothic arcade to marble panels and an ornate Gothic-style reredos with carved figures in niches. The front has paired trefoil-headed lancets to the lower level, taller lancets above and a roundel above them, all with tracery based on trefoils. An image niche with Gothic canopy and pinnacles sits between the upper lancets. The doorway is a 2-centred arch with hoodmould containing a plank door with Gothic-style ferramenta.

The chancel has two arched, almost triangular-headed, windows with tracery making three quatrefoils. The gallery and benches have plain joinery. The church has a trefoil-headed arch to a piscina. Another similar, but less ornate, reredos stands against the south wall behind a plainer stone altar.