The Church of Roundhay St. John is 141 years old. It was erected entirely through the munificence of the late Thomas Nicholson of Roundhay Park. Architecturally it belongs to the period of the Gothic Revival and was built at it time when the Church Commissioners, with government aid, had embarked upon a massive church building programme aimed at providing the increasing masses of ordinary people with opportunities to hear sound doctrine. Though not one of the "Commissioners' Churches" i.e. it received no financial aid either from the government or the Church Buildinq Society), St John's is contemporary with Christ Church Meadow Lane, St. Mark's Woodhouse, St. Mary's Quarry Hill and a host of others in the industrial areas of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Architects of the time were doubtless influenced by the need to build churches quickly and economically and the Gothic Style was adopted probably for these and reasons of conservatism and appropriateness. Thus of 214 churches built under the "Million" Act1 of 1818, 174 are classified Gothic. But passionate anti-Roman feeling in the early nineteenth century that no English Church should be suspected of the taint of Roman superstition is thought to have had a strong influence upon the style employed. Certainly churches became "very Protestant indeed."2 Windows were devoid of tracery; chancels became shallow recesses (as in Taylor's Churches)3 or disappeared altogether; interiors were destitute of decoration and symbolical sculpture; (to the good protestant of 1830 the least suggestion of symbolism - a cross on a gable or on a prayer book, was rank popery); high box pews added to an almost puritanical severity; galleries were erected to accommodate the poor - the more comfortable rows being rented by the rich. As all forms of ritual were suspect, the choir, if one existed, was "hidden" in the gallery. Even the old Gothic churches did not escape the wave of Protestant fervour. "Superstitious" features such as piscina and sedilia were abolished and since altars were seldom used even as tables, the chancel was either abandoned or used as a vestry; whatever "popish" symbols existed were screened by massive "horses-box" pews; reading desk, prayer desk and pulpit were often combined in a "three-decker" arrangement, from which the communion service was read by the black-gowned clergyman; no one knelt during the longer prayers or stood when the choir entered.4

Nowadays it is hard to understand the passions aroused or matters of church ritual and doctrine in the early nineteenth century. But this was the background against which St. John's was built. Like many of its contemporaries, it is somewhat austere in appearance. More fortunate than they, its severity is softened and a quiet dignity and charm imparted by its elevated and still comparatively secluded situation on the verge of woodland, overlooking a landscape, which, even in the twentieth-century, has a pastoral flavour. Within, the original plainness has been tempered by the laying of colourful mosaic flooring, the erection of ornate memorials, the extension of the chancel and other modifications detailed elsewhere, suggesting a reaction against the early austereness, and, perhaps reflecting the "restoration of romanticism" in English Churches of the second half of the nineteenth century.

It is clear that an account of a church such as St. John's must be very different from that of an ancient church. St. John's is neither ancient nor modern, but rather one of a pattern, built out of need at a particular period in history. Worshippers have gathered here for almost a century and a half, though Christian worship in the area is much older. This small book is the story of the development of the church and the community which it serves.

1. A Million Pounds of Government Aid.
2. Beckwith "Thomas Taylor, Regency Architect, Leeds" - Thoresby Society Monograph.
3. Thomas Taylor, Architect of St. Johns's church.
4. Much of this was drawn from Sir Kenneth Clark's "The Gothic Revival".

The Nicholson Family Memorials