Church of St John the Baptist

The Church of St John the Baptist is the Anglican parish church of Mildenhall — pronounced "Minal" by locals — the principal village of its civil parish in Wiltshire, lying on the River Kennet just east of Marlborough near the site of the Roman town of Cunetio. The place of worship has its origins in the tenth century, belongs to the Diocese of Salisbury, and has been a Grade I listed building since 22 August 1966 (list entry 1365445) — famous above all for its Saxon tower and its complete, untouched Georgian interior of oak box pews, twin pulpit and reading desk, and west gallery.

The church's roots reach back to 804, when the Abbot of Glastonbury secured a piece of land here to build a new church, though the parish church itself was built later, in the tenth century. In 1297 the patronage of the rectory was assigned, with the manor of Mildenhall, to John de Meriet and his wife Mary, and remained tied to the manor until 1460; between 1404 and 1422 it was exercised by the feoffees of Walter, Lord Hungerford, and in 1485 Sir Walter Hungerford, son of Robert, Lord Hungerford, claimed the advowson as part of his father's inheritance. In the 1420s a papal authorisation briefly united the churches of Mildenhall and Welford for an incumbent of Welford, but the union was short-lived. The Crown granted the next presentation to John Walker and others in 1546, and presented again in 1630 on the translation of the incumbent, Walter Curle, Bishop of Rochester, to Bath and Wells. The living was a wealthy one in the deanery of Marlborough: in the early 1830s the rector's average annual income was high, drawing tithes from the whole parish — in 1269 he had even been entitled to tithes from part of a meadow near the king's fish pond at Preshute — with the mill tithes commuted by 1705 and the remainder commuted in 1838 for an annual rent charge. A rectory house of 1671, perhaps the brick and stone house standing west of the church path in 1776, was succeeded after 1862 by a large new house in eighteenth-century style west of the village, later given a veranda and an extra storey, sold when a new rectory was built north of the church in 1965. A touching medieval bequest survives in the records: by his will proved in 1433, Thomas Poulton, Bishop of Worcester, left 120 sheep to the church of Mildenhall for an annual vigil and masses.

The early seventeenth century brought eminent incumbents, with curates serving the parish: Walter Curle, rector from 1619 to 1629, was elected Bishop of Rochester in 1628 and briefly held Mildenhall in commendam; Richard Steward, rector 1629–1641, became a prominent royalist exile; and George Morley, rector from 1641 to 1645 — who petitioned for restoration of the living in 1660 — was elected Bishop of Winchester in 1662. In 1783 there was a morning service with sermon and an afternoon service every Sunday, with additional services in Holy Week, at Whitsun and at Christmas, and communion celebrated at the three principal feasts; a fourth annual communion was added in 1812.

The building is constructed mainly of rubble, brick and ashlar, with chancel, nave, south porch and west tower. The lower parts of the tower are certainly Saxon — the only stone portion of the original church — with walls about 1.5 metres thick, clear long-and-short quoin stones between the courses, and a rough window on the south side, long blocked. The chancel and nave were rebuilt at the end of the twelfth century, though the porches — the south porch the oldest — probably follow the lines of earlier walls; the tower arch was probably added soon after that rebuilding, and the windows in the tower's middle and lower stages, eleventh-century in style, may also be twelfth-century. The thirteenth century inserted the west doorway and a lancet in the south aisle, but most windows are of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, as are the tower's upper stage, the clerestory and the nave roof. In the early seventeenth century the nave roof was embellished with pendants and the chancel received its panelled, vaulted ceiling. Much of the medieval stained glass was destroyed during the Civil War — though some of the small coloured panels at the top of the east window are among the oldest in the county. The tower ends in a parapet with battlements. In 1553 there were three bells, replaced by four new ones in 1596; five new bells were cast in 1801, and were rehung in the church in 1982.

Inside, the large space is divided into three by six Norman-style arches on twelfth-century stone columns, raised when the main stone building began. The corbels of the south arcade are carved, each different; those on the north are all plain. The column immediately to the left on entering carries part of a medieval wall painting, discovered only in 1981 during the restoration work of that period. The altar rails of the late eighteenth century may be contemporary with the leather communion kneelers of 1796, and the oldest monument in the sanctuary dates from 1647.

The glory of Mildenhall, however, is its Georgian refit. The church was restored in 1816, after twelve wealthy and influential parishioners reported it in deep decay; under the rector Charles Francis they resolved to renew the interior. A large window was inserted in the south clerestory, the south porch rebuilt — and a master joiner designed and built the matching box pews, the pulpit balanced by an identical reading desk, and the west gallery, all in oak, in a late Georgian Gothic style. The chancel furnishings and panelling date from the late eighteenth century. The ensemble survives essentially untouched — one of the most complete Georgian church interiors in England, praised by generations of church-crawlers. Further restorations followed in 1871, 1949 and 1982, each treading lightly. Today St John the Baptist serves within the Marlborough Anglican Team — the Saxon-towered, Norman-arcaded, Georgian-furnished church of the Kennet valley, eleven centuries in the making and lovingly unchanged for the last two.