St. John the Evangelist

Introduction

Saint John the Evangelist in Easingwold was built in 1830-33 by J A Hansom and altered in 1870 by Hadfield & Sons of Sheffield.

History

The church may have been the first designed by the young Joseph Hansom of York and the first built in the North Riding after Catholic emancipation in 1828. The church was greatly altered in the later nineteenth century, with the roof raised, a gallery for an organ built, larger windows installed and a larger sacristy, with the loss of two of the original lancet windows.

In 1952 a sculpture was donated by Mr and Mrs Watson in thanksgiving for the return and remembrance of the fallen during World War II. The church was surrounded by a high wall, even on to the street, perhaps because of anti-Catholic prejudice. Thanks to the Stapleton family, a grand high altar was built in the high Gothic style of 19th-century Gothic revival. The Benedictines took over in the late eighteenth century, before the refugee community of St Laurence found a home at Ampleforth in 1802.

The parish is served by the Monks of Ampleforth Abbey. The parish is part of Ampleforth Abbey Trust, a registered charity.

Architecture and furnishings

The elaborate Gothic style altar and reredos, in stone with polished marble columns, was designed by Joseph Hansom Jnr in 1870. A rood screen from St Anne's, a Benedictine church in Liverpool, was added to the church.

The church is built of ashlar with ashlar dressings and a slate roof, featuring raised coped gables with kneelers and a plinth. The west front includes a projecting single-storey porch with buttresses and a raised coped gable with kneelers and a cross finial. A central pointed arch doorway with double plank doors in a chamfered surround with hood mould is set in the west front. Behind the doorway, a tall triple lancet is set within three tall lancets with round columns and double chamfered arches.

On either side are five tall lancets in chamfered openings with buttresses between, while the south side has the eastern two bays masked by a later brick lean-to. The interior features a panelled wooden roof, a wooden west gallery, and late 19th-century pews installed in 1934.