The market town of Devizes is known for having one of the largest concentrations of listed buildings in the country - the historic centre boasts over five hundred. Among this impressive array of architecture and history, St John's holds its own: an example of Norman architecture of outstanding quality.
Built - along with the nearby castle - around 1130, both were the legacy of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury. Of Roger's church, the chancel and tower survive virtually intact; the transepts are also clearly Norman but with later additions. The nave of 6 bays was rebuilt in 1450 (albeit the westernmost bay and West front dates from 1863) in the Perpendicular style, to which two chantry chapels were added, flanking the chancel: the grander Beauchamp Chapel to the south, in 1492, and the Lamb chapel to the north, around 1483.
Looking from the west end, the interior is one of clear contrast: the slender Perpendicular nave arcade draws the eye to the low, Norman crossing arch, barely half the height of the east nave wall: the space above the arch - now blank and scraped - must surely have once hosted a wall painting, presumably a Doom? Passing through the arch, we enter an intimate and purely Romanesque space, and one of very high quality: the chancel has ribbed stone vault, its arches carrying an abundance of dogtooth and zig-zag. The capitals mirror this quality and include a splendid Green Man, but best of all is the intersecting blind arcading of the Sanctuary, with scale pattern above the spandrels. Sympathetic furnishing adds to the atmosphere. The East window, although in the same style, is in fact a Victorian replacement.
The furnishings include a fine array of 18th century memorials, and a Jacobean brass to John Kent (d. 1630), the Town Clerk, and his wife - oddly set into a later memorial stone dated 1788.
The church today remains the centre of a busy parish life, with concerts and talks, in addition to the pattern of regular Worship.
St John the Baptist, High St / Long St, Devizes SN10 1PA
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