The little parish church of St John the Evangelist stands on a quiet corner of Moss Lane. It was built due to the labours of Rev William Henry Massie, then Vicar of Goostrey, who died in 1856.

The font inside the church is not the original. The original from St John's was moved into the churchyard at Byley to the south of the church. The existing font came from St Michael's Middlewich. It had been removed from inside St Michael's and was in the churchyard at Middlewich for over one hundred years before being moved to Byley.

The church organ was installed in 1908 as a tribute to the Reverend Thomas William Kidd, (Rector 1866 - 1906) originally hand pumped it now has an electric blower.

The clock in the church tower, along with a memorial inside the church, is a tribute to those who gave their lives in the First World War. With the return of hostilities in 1939, the church became the focal point for the airmen serving at the Royal Air Force station at Cranage and the churchyard contains eighteen War Graves, eight of whom are buried close together - in death as in life - they were the air-crew of one plane. There were also two German Airmen buried in the churchyard but they were re-interred in the German War Cemetery at Cannock Chase in the early 1960's.

The church hall was used as a Church Army canteen up until 1943 when facilities were provided on the air-base itself. It was opened by Captain Tom Yeomans, C.A. who married a local girl. He is buried in the churchyard and there is a seat by the Copper Beech affording a beautiful view of the church from the south dedicated to his memory. The Copper Beech commemorating the Silver Jubilee of H M Queen Elizabeth in 1977. The hall was built in 1919 on a site donated by Sir Walter Shakerley, a Red Oak tree planted nearby commemorates the wedding of H R H Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

A new vestry commemorating the Reverend H W Lloyd-Jones, Rector of the parish for some fifteen years and officiating Chaplain at R.A.F. Cranage was built in 1952 by Miss E M Tittensor.

Other gifts and memorials not mentioned elsewhere include: a vestment chest in memory of Mrs E Owen in 1976, a brass font ewer from Mrs Kidd in 1881, silver communion plate consisting of flagon, chalice & paten, from Mrs Leigh of Jodrell Hall in 1847, a second silver chalice & paten from the Rev E G Auden, silver cruets from Mr & Mrs F Hough, a silver wafer box in memory of Mr H Herbert Ford and the re-carpeting of the church in memory of J Gleave, F Gleave, C Hough, E Leech and T A Dodd in 1982.

In 1989 the tower and the roof were restored by Brown's of Macclesfield at a cost of some £9000. A loan from the Incorporated Church Building Society of £1000 plus a grant of £250 from the Historic Churches Preservation Trust helped to reduce the amount required raising locally.

1997 saw the 150th Anniversery of the Church

Much of the information contained in this introduction has been extracted from "A Brief History" by R. Garnett, G. K. Turner and M. Turner produced in 1982 with additions in 1989 by Mrs E Jervis .

The illustration on page two was specially produced by Gail Dick in August 1997.

The drawings at the end of the index will give the relative positions of the memorials inside the church and of the gravestones in the churchyard. The numbers on these drawings are for reference purposes only and do not relate to any numbers in any burial register or grave plan. The numbers marked IS 1 to IS 19 are the memorials inside the church itself. Those from 1 to 99 refer to graves in the old part of the yard, numbers from 100 onwards are of the newer part - the line of trees showing the original boundary.

I would like to thank Mr. Bruce Gleave, Churchwarden, for his assistance in providing access to the church for the memorials within the church, often at very short notice and also to the Vicar, the Rev. Stanley Haworth for reminding me of St John's in the first place! - the churchyard inscriptions were done some time ago but were never published.

Mike Grose