St John The Baptist

MATERIALS: C16 brick in English bond, with stone tracery and dressings on E window.

The C19 E window has stone tracery in a Perpendicular style, and is set within the blocked, four-centred opening for the C16 E window.

There is no structural division between nave and chancel, but the C16 screen remains in its original position.

The very plain nave roof is C16 and is of the tie beam and common rafter type.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The C16 screen is an unusual form, with a deep moulded cornice rather than cresting and is divided into wide bays with evenly spaced, narrow lights with cusped heads and carved spandrels.

The dado panelling of feather edged boarding with a moulded cornice is probably also C16 in origin, much repaired on the S side, but largely original on the N. C19 or early C20 timber reredos of blind ogee panels with cared details and a brattished cornice

C19 drum pulpit with open traceried sides.

Small, octagonal font carved with quatrefoils on an octagonal stem.

Nave benches of c.1900 with shaped ends terminating in carved roundels.

C19 or early C20 carved timber screen at W end for vestry.

Red tiled nave floor, C19 encaustic tiles in the chancel, mosaic floor to sanctuary.

Some C19 stained glass.

HISTORY: The name hythe or hithe meant haven or landing place in Old English and Smallhythe was a port and major centre of ship building in the C14-C16 before the Rother silted up in the early C17 and changed its course.

Henry VIII visited Smallhythe in 1537 to view progress on the construction of one of his warships.

The town was devastated by fire in 1514 and the church was completely rebuilt in 1516-17.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: St John the Baptist, Smallhythe is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * A rare (and excellent) example of a complete Tudor brick church with some contemporary fittings including the chancel screen, W door and nave roof. * The exterior, with its crow-stepped gables and curvilinear window tracery, strongly recalls North European brick church architecture and as such is a rare occurrence in Kent. * The chancel roof is C18. * It has historical significance as a reminder of the former prosperity of Smallhythe in the late middle ages and Tudor period.