St John the Baptist, Coventry
St John the Baptist, Coventry
St John the Baptist on Fleet Street, at the head of Spon Street in Coventry city centre, is a Grade I Perpendicular collegiate church founded in 1344 by Queen Isabella, now a parish church in the Diocese of Coventry.
- Location
- Coventry, West Midlands
- Country
- England
- County
- West Midlands
- City / town
- Coventry
- Address
- Fleet Street, Coventry, West Midlands, CV1 3AY
- Postcode
- CV1 3AY
- Built
- Founded 1344; eastern part ready 1350; later medieval enlargements; restored as a parish church 1734
- Consecrated
- 2 May 1350
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- John the Baptist
- Diocese
- Coventry
- Parish
- Coventry St John the Baptist
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Perpendicular
- Materials
- Red sandstone
- Grid reference
- SP 330 790
- Opening hours
- Sorry, there are no regular opening times for this church.
- Access
- Accessible toilets nearby. Level access to the main areas
Overview
Historic England's Heritage at Risk entry describes a mid-fourteenth-century collegiate church, largely Perpendicular, with a crossing tower, transepts, clerestories to nave and chancel, and aisles, built of red sandstone of variable quality. Wikipedia and the Victoria County History record that Isabella of France granted the guild of St John land called Babbelak for a chapel in honour of God and St John the Baptist, with a chantry of two priests to sing daily Mass for the royal family. The eastern part was ready for consecration on 2 May 1350. The number of priests rose to nine in 1393 and twelve in the early sixteenth century. The college was dissolved in 1548.
Worship ceased about 1590. In the Civil War the church held Scottish prisoners after Preston; later it served as stables, a market and a cloth-dyeing house. It was restored as a place of worship in 1734. Furnishings are mostly late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century, including a carved rood screen and a south-chapel reredos by Ninian Comper. The church is on the Heritage at Risk Register because of decaying sandstone, especially at the nave clerestory.