St John The Baptist

MATERIALS: Walls are lime-rendered over grey lias rubble stone, and over brick to vestry, under tile roofs.

EXTERIOR: The exterior is mainly in Tudor-Gothic style.

The chancel south wall has a chamfered priest's doorway and straight-headed 2-light window, possibly a bequest of 1405 from Sir John Russell.

In the north wall is a cusped 1-light window, blocked by an internal monument.

In the roof slope above is the gabled roof of this monument.

INTERIOR: The C14 chancel arch is double-chamfered, with inner order on corbels.

The chancel has a plastered segmental barrel ceiling in which ashlar pieces are visible that are probably medieval and suggest that the plaster covers a medieval roof.

The nave has a wide plastered barrel ceiling, probably C15, divided into panels by moulded ribs and wall plate, and three richly moulded tie beams.

An angel boss is attached to the soffit of one of the beams.

The nave floor is worn C15 tiles of two colours, with bricks at the west end, and with raised wood floors below the benches.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The west gallery is constructed of parts from a C16 rood screen of unknown provenance.

It is carried on posts that incorporate elaborate nodding ogee canopies over niches, and carved foliage brackets.

The front is made up of painted panels showing a central figure of Christ flanked by Apostles, saints and church figures, which are derived from the dado of a rood screen, uncommon in Worcestershire, and restored in 1875.

The C19 neo-Norman tub font is decorated with blind round arches.

A pulpit and attached reading desk of c1700 form a fine ensemble in front of a narrow, deeply splayed doorway to the vestry.

Benches are mid C16, decorated with linenfold panelling framed by timber buttresses.

A C19 Royal Arms of George III and hatchments of John Taylor and James Taylor are fixed above the chancel arch.

Boards with Ten Commandments, Lord's Prayer and Apostle's Creed are fixed on the west wall.

The chancel has an outstanding collection of monuments to the Russell family and others, from the late C14 onwards.

They include brasses to Sir Robert Russell , Sir John Russell , Robert Russell and Thomas Russell A large Jacobean monument to Sir Thomas Russell and his wife is possibly by Samuel Baldwin.

The figures are well preserved and retain painted and gilded decoration.

A grand Baroque wall monument to Sir Francis Russell and his wife is by Edward Stanton.

The deceased reclines with one elbow on a chest, with a female figure kneeling at his head, with inscriptions both on the chest and behind, framed by an open pediment.

A monument to Anne, Lady Gyse , has a reclining effigy over sarcophagus, and superstructure so tall that it required the chancel roof to be raised under a gable.

A memorial to the satirist Samuel Butler is in Gothic style, of the 1830s, by Robert Sshton Jnr

Stained glass includes the east window by Cox, Son and Buckly, showing the Good Shepherd , and a south chancel window by Florence Camm for Thomas William Camm of Smethwick, showing the Good Samaritan A nave Ascension window is by Curtis, Ward and Hughes HISTORY: The church was built close to Strensham Castle, which was destroyed in the Civil War, and a village that was deserted in the C14.

Strensham was the seat of the Russell family from the C13 until 1705, which is reflected in the range of funeral monuments.

The church has a C14 core of nave and chancel, to which the tower was added in the late C14 or C15.

Nave windows were altered in the C15.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St John the Baptist, Strensham, is listed Grade I for the following principal reasons: * It has extensive surviving medieval fabric and preserves its late-medieval external character, including a fine tower. * The interior arrangement is pre C19, including very good C16 benches, substantial parts of a C16 rood screen (made into a gallery), early C18 pulpit

box pew. * It has an outstanding series of monuments of the C14 to the C19 that display many of the changing fashions in monument design over that period.