St John the Baptist, Beckford

St John the Baptist is a Grade I parish church on Main Street, Beckford, Worcestershire, in the Diocese of Worcester. It stands on the eastern slopes of Bredon Hill.

Overview

Historic England records a parish church of about 1130 on an earlier site, altered and extended in the early fourteenth, early fifteenth, and early and late seventeenth centuries, and restored in the mid nineteenth century. The fabric is partly coursed limestone rubble and limestone ashlar with ashlar dressings and stone-tiled roofs laid in diminishing courses. The plan is a three-bay nave with opposing doorways and south porch, a central tower and a three-bay chancel with north vestry.

The Norman nave retains two doorways. The weathered north doorway has a tympanum of the Harrowing of Hell above a lintel with a foliated frieze. The south doorway, protected by a fifteenth-century porch, has a tympanum with a cross, circle, bird and flanking beasts. The tower arch has zigzag decoration, human heads and a centaur. Furnishings include fifteenth-century bench ends and a font of about the same date. The large west window is a fifteenth-century five-light opening between the jambs of the original round-headed west windows.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1167374
• British Listed Buildings: Church of St John the Baptist