St. John the Baptist's Church Clowne

A general view

The final leg of the reconnaisance of Clowne, having looked at the war memorial and had a coffee, was to drive to the Grade II* Listed church of St. John the Baptist, which lies some distance to the south- east of Clowne town centre.

A detail of a a buttress

Seen from a distance, the structure is essentially dolomitic limestone from the Cadeby Formation but, looking closer, the dressings to the west door of the tower are actually made from a mottled yellow/red medium grained, cross-bedded sandstone, as are the diagonal buttresses to the tower.

The west window of the tower

A similarly mottled variety of the ‘Rotherham Red’ sandstone has been used extensively in mediaeval churches in Todwick, Wales, Killamarsh and Harthill but I have not yet discovered a quarry source of this.

Cross-bedded sandstone 

Looking at the west elevation of the tower, which Pevsner describes as Perpendicular and contains windows of this period, there are various styles of masonry, with the lowest part being built principally in limestone but incorporating blocks of sandstone.

The west door

This is obviously the oldest part of the tower, following stratigraphic principles, and set within it is a doorway that has an arch that is formed by two large irregular face bedded slabs, which have been crudely shaped on their outer edges but which have been carefully tooled to a near round form in the interior.

The west elevation of the tower

At a higher level, the masonry comprises only ashlar blocks of limestone, with varied course heights and this marks a phase of rebuilding in the Perpendicular Gothic style. The Historic England listing describes the mediaeval part of St. John’s church as dating to the C12 and C14 and it is therefore possible that the lower section of the tower is part of the Norman church.

A general view of the north elevation

The most interesting feature of the north elevation of St. John’s church is the pair of enormous buttresses, with multiple set-offs, which are completely out of proportion to the size and height of the north aisle wall that they are supporting and which contain two high level windows – in a similar position to those usually seen in a clerestory.

Buttresses to the north aisle

Apart from these, the mediaeval fabric of the north aisle has largely been obscured by pebbledash and various C20 additions have covered up other parts that would be of interest to a standing buildings archaeologist.

The White Mansfield stone chancel

Moving on to the chancel, which was rebuilt in 1955, the only point of interest here is the use of White Mansfield stone, a sandy variety of the Cadeby Formation that was once widely used in the Midlands and further afield, but is no longer available – just like the Red Mansfield stone.

The CWGC headstone

Stopping briefly to take a couple of photos of a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone, carved in Portland limestone, I then only had time to take a couple of photos of the C12 south door through the iron gates on the C18 gabled south porch.

The Norman south door