The church of ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST stands between the two villages and consists of chancel, 24 ft. 6 in. by 19 ft. 6 in.; clerestoried nave, 58 ft. by 19 ft. 6 in.; north and south aisles, south porch, and north-east tower, 11 ft. by 12 ft., all these measurements being internal. The north aisle is 10 ft. 4 in. wide and the south aisle 7 ft. 8 in., the width across nave and aisles being 43 ft. 2 in. The eastern bay of each aisle is separated from the rest by an arch from the outer wall to the nave pier, and to the north-east chapel thus formed the tower is attached on its north side.
Substantially the building dates from c. 1220 to 1250, and the only subsequent alterations to the plan have been the addition of the porch and the shortening of the chancel; the clerestory is part of the 13th-century fabric. About 1290–1300 new windows were inserted in the south aisle and the porch was erected, and further changes took place in the 15th century, when the present west window of the nave was put in and the chancel probably assumed its present appearance. The east window is of this period and, though evidence is wanting, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the chancel was shortened by a bay about this time. The north aisle, with the exception of its east bay, was taken down at some time unknown and the arcade filled in; it was rebuilt in its present form in 1849, in which year the church was restored and a west gallery pulled down.
The church is built throughout of rubble, and internally the walls are plastered. The chancel has a tiled eaved roof, but the roofs of the nave and aisles are slated, behind plain ashlar parapets.
The chancel is divided by buttresses into three short bays and has a pointed east window of three cinquefoiled lights with Perpendicular tracery. On each side of the window within is a blocked and mutilated imagerecess, the canopies and one of the brackets having been destroyed. A lancet window and a double piscina were discovered and opened out in 1909 at the east end of the south wall; the piscina was partly covered by the existing east wall, but is now fully exposed to view by the removal of part of the masonry. The recess has a square chamfered head and octagonal dividing-shaft and one of the bowls is perfect: the projecting front of the second bowl has been cut away. The lancet window, which is above the piscina at the extreme end of this wall, has been restored and the width of its inner splay reduced, but the original jambs remain.
The chancel appears to have been originally about 9 ft. longer than at present. The priest's doorway is of a single chamfered order with label, and in the western bay is a 15th-century square-headed window of three cinquefoiled lights with quatrefoils in the head. There are now no windows in the north wall, but near the east end is a small rectangular aumbry and what appears to be part of a lancet jamb: externally the wall is covered by a thin coat of plaster. The chancel arch is of two chamfered orders, on double chamfered responds with moulded capitals and bases.
The nave arcades are of four bays with arches of two chamfered orders springing from octagonal piers with moulded capitals and bases and from responds of the same type; in the eastern bay of the north aisle the pier is a compound one with attached responds carrying the nave and aisle arches, and giving support to the tower. At the west end of the nave are massive buttresses of two stages to take the thrust of the arcades, and between them a four-centred window of four cinquefoiled lights with Perpendicular tracery. This window, which is high in the wall, takes the place of a group of lancets the outer jamb-stones of which are still in position on either side, visible both within and without. Below the window internally is a stone bench. The clerestory has four restored lancet openings on the south side and three on the north, all without hood-moulds.
In the south aisle the west window is a restored trefoiled lancet, but that at the east is of two lights with forked mullion, and those in the south wall of three lights with uncusped intersecting tracery. The piscina of the aisle altar remains in the usual position, with plain projecting bowl and trefoiled head with label terminating in notch-heads. The arch between the eastern bay and the aisle is of two hollow chamfered orders, carried on the wall side by a corbel: it is of the same date as the adjacent windows. The 13th-century south doorway has a sharply pointed arch of two chamfered orders and label, the outer on nook-shafts with moulded capitals and bases, the inner continued to the ground below imposts. The outer doorway of the porch is of two continuous orders, the inner with wavemoulding, the outer hollow-chamfered; built into the gable is a stone dated 1685.
The 13th-century arch between the north aisle and its eastern bay, or chapel, is of two chamfered orders springing from half-round responds with moulded capitals and bases, and the tower arch is of three orders continued to the ground on the south and dying out on the north side. The windows of the modern north aisle are in the style of the 14th century, but the east window is original, of two lancet lights with pierced spandrel.
The tower is 60 ft. in height and of three stages, with pairs of gabled buttresses at the north-west and north-east angles in the lower stage, the height of which is about equal to the other two. The south-east buttress is not gabled. At the second stage the walls set back with a line of nail-head ornament and the bell-chamber windows are of two lancet lights, with shafted jambs, set within a pointed containing arch: the tympanum is unpierced. There are flat buttresses east and west to about half the height of the lower stage, which on the north has a restored window of two trefoiled lights occupying the middle of a 13th-century wall arcade of three arches on shafts with moulded capitals and bases. There is a vice in the north-west corner and adjoining it on the west an external doorway, now blocked, which, though modern, appears to reproduce an original entrance, the bases of the nook shafts and jambs being ancient. The battlemented parapet is a 15thcentury addition: its angle pinnacles are gone.
The 13th-century font has a plain octagonal bowl on a short shaft and two steps. The oak pulpit is modern. There is a scratch dial on the east jamb of the porch doorway.
Bridges records inscriptions in the floor of the chancel to Alexander Ekins (d. 1655), Ann Sawyer (d. 1682), James Sawyer, junr. (d. 1692), Thomas Sawyer (d. 1694), William Gardner (d. 1705), and Mary Allen (d. 1710).There are five bells, the treble by Thomas Eayre of Kettering 1744, the third and fourth by Taylor & Son, St. Neots, 1819, and the second and tenor dated 1727.
The plate consists of a silver cup and paten of 1851, a paten of 1849, a cup of 1852, and a plated flagon.The registers before 1812 are as follows: (i) baptisms 1573–1662, marriages 1573–1651, burials 1573– 1644; (ii) missing; (iii) baptisms and burials 1723–54, marriages 1723–53; (iv) baptisms and burials 1754– 1812; (v) marriages 1755–1812.
From: 'Parishes: Chelveston-cum-Caldecott', A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 4 (1937), pp. 8-11. URL: (
visit link) Date accessed: 11 June 2011.