In medieval times, everybody went to church. In fact, you had to, and you were fined if you didn’t! So, as Bromsgrove grew in size, more and more people had to be fitted into the church. The easiest way of making the church bigger was to widen it by adding aisles. St John’s probably had narrow aisles from early times, but its original narrow south aisle was almost doubled in width in the late 15th century, when the south arcade was rebuilt.

There’s something else different about this aisle as well. Look at the windows. Most of the other windows in the church have pointed tops. The south aisle windows are flat-topped, like modern windows. This shows how late in the medieval period this aisle was rebuilt. Like the nave roofs, flat was now fashionable. It allowed more light to pour in, and the fact that it used more glass again showed that the town could afford it -the show-offs!

The large wall monument in the south aisle commemorates George Lyttelton, who died in 1600. Lyttelton was a prominent lawyer in Elizabethan England and married into the Talbot family, who we’ll meet later. Take a moment to look at his tomb, and especially the carvings around the inscription. The Elizabethan church was dominated by strict Puritans, and their rather gloomy view of life and death clearly shows in the reminders of mortality carved round the central inscription.

The little bay near the east end of the aisle is also quite unusual. It originally held the long-lost tomb monument to a local worthy, but it is now the resting place for various pieces of medieval stonework, including a stone coffin lid with a foliate cross – that is, a cross with leaves; and the figure of a medieval priest, again from the top of a tomb in the churchyard.

While we’re here, let’s take a peek into the south porch, if it’s open.