Building record 14144 - Church of St. John, Hartford

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 402983 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

Church: dated 1875, and tower added 1887-9, both by John Douglas. Dressed coursed buff sandstone with red sandstone dressings. Red tile roof. Five-bay nave and aisles. Two-bay chancel with vestry to the south and chapel to north, south and north porches and four-stage west tower. Timber-framed south porch on stone base has panelled bargeboards, toothed tie-beam and chevron work in the gable. Bays of the aisle are divided by buttresses and have pairs of double or triple, trefoil or cinquefoil headed lancets. Clerestory has nine lancet windows regularly placed under a continuous label mould. Similar windows and Caernarvon arched doorways to vestry. East end has a giant arch on raking pilasters which contains a triple lancet with minimal tracery, the lights divided by chamfered pilasters with stopped heads. North side is identical to the south. The tower has heavy clasping pilasters, one of which contains a stair turret and rises above the top of the tower. Three-light west window with sexfoil panel. Second stage has some partially blind arcading, a clock in the third and a pair of trefoil headed louvred bell openings in the top stages. These have triangular hoods with ball flower finials. Embattled parapet on corbels.

Interior: of rubble stone with ashlar dressings. Five-bay arcade of chamfered arches on alternate circular and octagonal piers. The pairs of aisle windows have splayed reveals and pointed heads and a colonnette between the pair. Splayed reveals to clerestory windows. Wagon roof to nave. Simple tower arch carried on corbels has a wooden Gothic screen with drop tracery. Double chancel arch on short colonnettes. Chancel has a pair of unequal arches on an octagonal pier to the north chapel and a more unequal pair on the south side contains the organ and access to the vestry. Plaster and wooden reredos of the Last Supper, in a Gothic gilded setting. Panelled roof to the chancel.

<2> Hartwell C, Hyde M, Hubbard E & Pevsner N, 2011, The Buildings of England: Cheshire (2011 revision), p.390 (Book). SCH7059.

By John Douglas, 1873-5. The western tower has a higher stair turret dating from 1885-7, which is more decorative than the rest of the building. Typical Douglas touches are the battered buttresses and the south east organ chamber and vestry. The timber-framed porches and western extension of 1997-8 are by Dennis Doxat-Pratt. The stained glass includes a reset window of 1890 and monuments include Thomas Marshall and the sarcophagus tablet to Lilian Pearson.

<3> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Land Line and Master Map Vector Maps (Maps and Plans). SCH4491.

<4> Ormerod, G., 1882, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, Vol.II, p.199 (Book). SCH1389.

'...A church was erected here in 1824, and consecrated Dec. 8th in that year, and the patronage vested in three trustees-Messrs. John Marshall, Thomas Marshall, and
James Royds. The living was a perpetual curacy. The pew rents went to the incumbent, the clerk, and to the repairs and general expenses of the church. This structure
was pulled down about three years ago, and a handsome church (consecrated June 24, 1875) erected in its place, of which all the seats are free. The patronage of the new edifice has been assigned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to Lieut.-Col. Thomas Horatio Marshall, of Hartford Beach. The present vicar is the Rev. Edward Eddowes, M.A….'