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St John the Baptist's Church, Barnack

11th-century church buildings in EnglandBarnackChurch of England church buildings in CambridgeshireChurches in PeterboroughGrade I listed churches in Cambridgeshire
Standing Anglo-Saxon churchesUse British English from November 2017
Barnack church
Barnack church

The Church of St John the Baptist, Barnack is a Church of England parish church in the village of Barnack, now in the City of Peterborough unitary authority area of the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England. Barnack was part of the Soke of Peterborough, an historic area that was traditionally part of Northamptonshire. Barnack is 3.5 miles (6 km) south-east of Stamford in Lincolnshire. The church is a Grade I listed building.The church, dedicated to John the Baptist, is noted in particular for its Anglo-Saxon tower to which was added a spire of circa 1200, possibly one of the earliest spires in England.In the north aisle is a large Romanesque sculpture of a seated Christ in Majesty that was discovered under the floor in 1931. Estimates of the date of the Christ vary widely, from the latter part of the 10th century to circa 1200; the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland settles on the late 12th century.Simon Jenkins gives the church four stars in his England's Thousand Best Churches (1999) and highlights as features the tower, the stiff-leaf font and the Christ in Majesty. The height of the surviving Saxon work in the tower is 55 feet (17 metres), topped by an octagon and spire of 59 feet high (18 metres), giving a total height to the base of the weathervane of 114 feet (35 metres).

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article St John the Baptist's Church, Barnack (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

St John the Baptist's Church, Barnack
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N 52.6326 ° E -0.407 °
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Saint John the Baptist

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PE9 3DN
England, United Kingdom
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Barnack church
Barnack church
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Barnack Hills & Holes National Nature Reserve
Barnack Hills & Holes National Nature Reserve

Barnack Hills & Holes is a 23.3-hectare (58-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Barnack in Cambridgeshire. It is also a national nature reserve. It is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I. In 2002 it was designated as a Special Area of Conservation, to protect the orchid-rich grassland as part of the Natura 2000 network of sites throughout the European Union.Arising from the rubble of a medieval quarry, the Hills and Holes is one of Britain’s most important wildlife sites. Covering an area of just 50 acres (22 ha), the grassy slopes are home to a profusion of wild flowers. This type of meadowland is now all too rare; half of the surviving limestone grassland in Cambridgeshire is found here. In 2002 it was designated as a Special Area of Conservation, to protect the orchid-rich grassland as part of the Natura 2000 network of sites throughout the European Union.The hummocky landscape was created by quarrying for limestone. Barnack stone, was a valuable building stone first exploited by the Romans over 1,500 years ago. Stone from Barnack was used to build Peterborough and Ely Cathedrals. By the year 1500 however, all the useful stone had been removed and the bare heaps of limestone rubble gradually became covered by the rich carpet of wild flowers that can be seen today. The limestone was originally formed in Jurassic times. It is made from the remains of billions of tiny sea-creatures which lived in a warm shallow sea that covered the area 150 million years ago.Barnack’s rich flora supports a wide variety of wildlife, especially insects, and a number of nationally scarce species are found. Limestone grasslands are traditionally grazed with sheep and at Barnack, grazing is carried out in autumn by up to 300 sheep. These remove the summer growth and build-up of leaves, stalks and grass tussocks that would otherwise die back to form a dead layer, or litter, on the ground. Without grazing, the build-up of coarse grasses and litter would rapidly choke the rarer lime-loving plants.