St John the Baptist Church, Newcastle upon Tyne

St John's Church is a 13th-century church on the corner of Grainger Street and Westgate Road in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, dedicated to St John the Baptist. It is a Grade I listed building.^[1]

The old church of St John is believed to date from c.1287.^[2] William Gray, a 16th-century topographer and burgess of Newcastle, called it "a pretty little church, commended by an arch-prelate of this kingdom because it resembled much a cross".^[3]

The church, surrounded by modern buildings on three sides, is modest, with a low square tower featuring small pinnacles and windows with flattened arched tops. A stone in the south transept window commemorates Robert Rhodes, the builder of St Nicholas' Cathedral's steeple in Newcastle, and a benefactor to the town's churches. The current stone is a copy of the original, removed around 1861 during repairs, and now housed in the castle.^[4]

The 15th-century font cover and the Jacobean pulpit are examples of local woodwork. The chancel, now the Lady Chapel, contains a window including the fragments of medieval glass with the earliest known representation of the arms of Newcastle. Further along the wall is a cruciform opening which enabled the anchorite, whose cell was above the present sacristy, to see the altar. The rood and reredos are both the work of Sir Charles Nicholson.^[5]

Part of the graveyard was built over in the 1960s for meeting rooms and a hall. As of 2010, there remained about ten gravestones. Two of these, that to Solomon Hodgson (died 1800)^[6] and Sarah Hodgson, owners of the Newcastle Chronicle, and that to the artist Ralph Waters^[7] are listed Grade II.

The Dublin-born actor and poet John Cunningham is buried in the graveyard.^[8] Not far from the east window lies a stone slab, part of a table monument, its four supporting pillars lying half buried in the soil beneath it. The inscription on it reads as follows:

• St John the Baptist’s Church web site
• Photographs here