St. John the Baptist, Tideswell

St. John the Baptist, Tideswell

St. John’s is known as ‘The Cathedral of the Peak’, with very good cause. It is a magnificent church. The sign outside welcomes people. This church is in ‘1000 best churches’ and with good reason.

There is a bookstall here and guides, cards and multi lingual welcome leaflets are available. Also some gospels. There are some childrens books as well and some of the UCB Bible reading guides. The visitors book is a loose leaf binder and showed 39 entries in the last 5 1/2 days – those were all the pages in it.

This is s stunning church. The rich interior could be an East Anglian church. The choir stall had been made by Suffolk craftsmen and bear comparison with places like Long Melford and Lavenham. A side chapel houses a local history display which was interesting several visitors at the time I was there, as well as a World War 1 display and some ‘prayer poppies’.

The church also houses the Tideswell embroided map. This is a very interesting church to visit with plenty to see.

This is more than a historic building though as it has a ‘prayed in’ atmosphere about it. A ‘Daily Prayer’, ‘Exciting Holiness’ and a Lectionary left out show that here is a place where regular prayer is offered.

In the Lady Chapel is a good reflection on the cost and waste of war as well as a good statue of our Lady.

I rate this church as very good – some way of enabling visitors to offer prayers would be good as would something aimed at children but this is certainly a church that any visitor to the Peak District must see.

William Newton window