Parish Church of St John the Baptist

Heritage listing

Details TL 0475 BYTHORN AND KEYSTON KEYSTON 19/40 Parish Church of 28.1.58 St John the Baptist GV I Parish church. Nave, north and south aisles mid C13, chancel late C13. West tower and south porch mid C14. Late C15 east wall of chancel rebuilt and north and south walls heightened, north and south transepts added and aisles largely rebuilt; clerestory added to nave. Restorations in 1883, 1898 (Pevsner suggests a C19 rebuilding of the spire). Roofs renewed in C16 and former vault to tower replaced by a wooden floor. Walls of Weldon rubble with dressings of Weldon and Barnack limestone. Roofs of zinc and lead. South elevation: West tower of three stages with moulded plinth and octagonal broach spire, second stage window of one trefoiled-light with moulded label and beast-head stops; belfry with two embattled transomed windows each with two upper and lower trefoiled-lights and a quatrefoil in a two-centred head with moulded labels and head stops, the jambs are enriched with flowers and the cusping of the tracery with rosettes at the points. Below the cornice a deep band of panels with blind tracery. Octagonal spine with shaped finials to the broaches and three tiers of gabled spire-lights divided in first two tiers by a central shaft and with shafted jambs, quatrefoils or trefoils; the windows of the third tiers have single lights with trefoiled ogee heads. (The west doorway is recessed within the thickness of the wall with a very fine outer ogee headed cusped arch). Clerestory and aisle with plain moulded parapet; five clerestory windows each of two trefoiled lights with vertical tracery in a four-centred head with moulded label. South aisle with moulded plinth continuous around south transept, three C15 windows each of three cinquefoiled lights in four-centred arches wit

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.