It is dedicated to St John the Evangelist and is a Grade I listed building.

The earliest known building on the site was a medieval one with associations to the Knights Templar which was decaying by the 17th century but restored by Nicholas Ferrar and his family when they founded their religious community in the village at that date.

Mistress Ferrar also donated the surviving brass font of c.1625 and the 15th-century brass lectern with eagle, while the current cedar communion table also dates from the Ferrars' occupancy.

[4] That church was replaced by the present one in 1714 with a nave 8 feet shorter than its predecessor and removing the west gallery the Ferrars had installed.

[8] St John's is listed in Simon Jenkins' England's Thousand Best Churches.