The Church of St John the Evangelist

The Church of St John the Evangelist is a church dating from 1844-6, designed by Anthony Salvin for David Gurney of North Runcton Hall. The building is constructed from tooled ashlar with stone dressings, and has slate roofs in alternating bands of fishscale and plain slates. It is built in the Early English style.

The church's plan includes a chancel with vestries, a nave with aisles, a north porch, and west doors. The chancel features triple lancet windows to the east, with further lancets to the north and south of the vestries. The aisles also have lancet windows, and the five-bay nave clerestory includes small circular trefoil windows. The west end has two lancets set within a five-arched blind arcade supported on shafts. Angle buttresses rise into square spirelets, topped with open shafted lancets. Massive free-standing buttresses, added in 1889-90 to strengthen the west wall, project westward with linked flying buttresses.

Inside, the chancel contains stained glass from 1846 by W. Wailes, and an elaborate stone reredos of 1896. A further stained glass window from 1877, possibly by Hardman, is located in the south wall. The choir stalls, dated 1946, have poppy head finials and blind-arcaded fronts. The roof is a scissor-brace design with lower curved braces supported on carved head corbels. There is an elaborate stone and marble pulpit from 1882, with double blind arcades, and a pair of stone reading desks with marble shafts. A brass eagle lectern is also present. The nave has arcades with double-chamfered arches supported on circular piers, and a similar scissor-brace roof supported on carved head corbels. Originally, the nave contained open benches, believed to be the first free seating in King's Lynn. In 1980, the western two bays of the nave were partitioned at lower levels to create separate spaces, but the upper part of the nave remains open with visible west windows. An octagonal stone font has an elaborate octagonal open shrine cover, with crocketted gablets and a pyramidal roof. The church was originally intended as a church for the poor and forms part of a significant group of historic buildings, including St. John’s Terrace opposite.