St John the Baptist Church, Inglesham

St John the Baptist Church stands beside the Thames near Swindon, its walls rising above water meadows where three waterways meet. Most of the building dates from about 1205, though parts are far older. The church holds Grade I status on the national heritage list and is now looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust. Its thick stone walls and simple nave still show the shape of a medieval church. Inside, fragments of earlier churches remain, including Anglo-Saxon carvings and layers of wall paintings. The church’s survival owes much to William Morris, who lived sixteen kilometres away. In the 1880s he led a campaign to stop Victorian changes that would have spoiled the building. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings raised money and chose J. T. Micklethwaite to guide repairs. Later restorers uncovered Doom paintings and medieval saints behind later texts. A 1933 repair replaced the chancel reredos, and the church was saved again in 1981 when it became redundant. Visitors step into a quiet nave with box pews from the Commonwealth era. On the south wall an Anglo-Saxon Mother and Child carving once served as a sundial. Wall paintings from the 13th to the 18th centuries cover the plaster in places seven layers deep. The chancel holds a knight’s brass on a black marble slab and a 13th-century piscina with a trefoiled head. Outside, a 15th-century cross stands on three steps beside the lychgate.