St John the Baptist, Chipping Sodbury

St John the Baptist is the parish church of Chipping Sodbury, standing off Wickwar Road a few minutes from the wide High Street, between the old burgage plots of the town and the River Frome. It was dedicated in 1284 and rebuilt larger in the fifteenth century. It is listed Grade I.

History

St John's began as the chapel of a new town. Chipping Sodbury was laid out as a market town in the early thirteenth century beside the older village of Old Sodbury, and the Victoria County History's draft says its church was dedicated only in 1284, on 9 May according to the parish. For centuries it was a chapel of ease to Old Sodbury's church, though it had its own burial rights, and the two places were joined again as one parish only in 1945.

The church was squeezed in where the town's plots met the river, and it was rebuilt on a larger scale in the fifteenth century. The tower probably dates from the end of that century. In 1869 the Victorian architect G E Street restored the building, and an organ by W G Vowles of Bristol was installed the same year.

What to look for

Start with the west tower, four stages high and about 32m tall, with a pierced battlemented parapet and crocketed pinnacles; inside, its base has a tierceron vault, and it holds a ring of eight bells. The south porch has three figures in niches, put back in the nineteenth century. Inside, look for:

• The fifteenth-century pulpit, built into the wall between the third and fourth bays of the north arcade and fan-vaulted inside
• The Early English chancel arch, with its twisted ends
• A finely carved fifteenth-century image bracket
• An incised slab to Richard Colmore, dated 1513
• The octagonal font of the thirteenth century
• St Katherine's Chapel, beyond the organ, dedicated to the saint the parish calls the patron of weavers
• A stained glass window showing the risen Christ with St Peter by the lake

Its listing calls the church mostly Perpendicular, with thirteenth-century origins, which you can see in the chancel arch and the font.

Visiting

The parish publishes no visiting hours, so check with the Sodbury Vale Benefice office on 01454 325160 before a special trip; the office is staffed on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Sunday services start at 9.30am, and a said communion is held on Thursdays at 10am in the Church Centre across Wickwar Road. A Church Near You lists a ramp, an accessible toilet and a hearing loop at the church, and public toilets, including an accessible one, are in the Clock Tower on the High Street.

Getting there

By car, use the two free car parks off Wickwar Road by Waitrose, owned by the supermarket, with overflow parking at The Ridings about 300m further up the road. First's Y6 runs from Bristol through Yate to Chipping Sodbury every one and a half to two hours from Monday to Saturday and every two hours on Sundays, and the nearest railway station is at Yate, about 2 miles away. Stagecoach 620 stops in the town several times a day from Monday to Saturday, with no Sunday service, on its way between Bath and Tetbury and Stroud.

No walk of ours starts in the town, but Old Sodbury, the hill fort and the church begins 2 miles east, and the Cotswold Way runs along the edge above Old Sodbury.

Nearby

The older church, St John the Baptist's at Old Sodbury, is on the hill 2 miles east, with Sodbury Camp above it and Horton Camp further north. The Squire, on Broad Street, is a pub about 120m from the church, and the Bell at Old Sodbury has rooms. Hobbs House Bakery, the family bakery whose story runs through the town, has a shop on the High Street. Our guide to Chipping Sodbury covers the town and its twice-yearly Mop Fair.