St John's Church is situated within a rectilinear churchyard, whose boundaries are delineated by roads to the north and south. The church was built as a chapel of ease to Llanbadrn Fawr, on land donated by Sir Pryse Pryse, Gogerddan. Reportedly, Evan Jones, Tynfynnon carried the first load of stones from a Lodge Park Quarry (behind the Queens Hotel), Aberystwyth. The church was consecrated by Bishop Charles R. Alford, Victoria, Canada (in the absence through illness of the Bishop of St Davids) on 14 June 1881.

The church was constructed in 1880-1882 in lancet style to the designs of R.J. Withers. It is a Grade II listed building, considered a good example of a late Victorian country church, influenced by the change of taste away from High Victorian Gothic to a more vernacular style. The contractors were Roderick Williams sand Son, Aberystwyth. It is constructed of coursed local rubble stone with bath stone dressings, and plain red-tile roof with crested ridge tiles and two terracotta crosses. It consists of nave, chancel , north organ chamber, lean-to north-east vestry, gabled south-west doorway, and weatherboarded west bell-tower with pyramid roof. The interior is broad with plastered painted walls under seven-sided rafter roofs opened up with trusses under the turret. Furnishings and fittings include a glazed ceramic eagle and dragon lectern (made for Llanbadarn Fawr, 1880)., and alabaster reredos. Stained glass includes work by Hardman (1900) and Celtic Studios (1979).

Sources include:
Cadw, Listed Buildings Database.
T.Lloyd, J.Orbach & R.Scourfield, Buildings of Wales: Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion (2006), p.557.
www.trefeurig.org/eglwyshanes.php?lang=en&

D Leighton & N Vousden, RCAHMW, 17 July 2015