Church Of St John

CAMDEN

TQ2685NW CHURCH ROW 798-1/26/237 (South side) 11/08/50 Church of St John

GV I

Church, closing the perspective of Church Row. 1745-47 by John Sanderson, the present nave & tower; 1759 steeple rebuilt; 1784 spire added; 1843 Robert Hesketh added the transepts and extended the church 30 feet westwards; 1878 FP Cockerell reoriented the church to an altar at the west end, built the present chancel & added galleries; 1912 Temple Moore created the north-western Chapel of St Mary & St John out of a vestry and added new clergy & choir vestries on south side. Crypt converted for use as Parish Room 1964-5. Yellow stock brick with stone dressings. STYLE/PLAN: plain Classical design with 6-bay nave, aisles, sanctuary and tower at east end with spire. EXTERIOR: main entrance at base of east tower with moulded stone doorcase and console bracketed pediment below which a plaque dated 1745 (reused from west end); overlight and panelled doors. To either side of tower, entrances with moulded stone doorcases and cornices; panelled doors. 3 round-arched, architraved windows at 1st floor level with keystones, lugs and bracketed sills; small panes. Tower with stone dentil cornice extending as a plain band across aisle gable and upwards to form a pediment shape. Above the cornice, tower has a circular lugged clock and round-arched belfry openings with architraved heads having keystones and impost bands continuing around the tower as do the sill bands; battlemented parapet and spire with weathervane. Aisles lit by similar round-arched windows to east end; west end with 3 similar windows and oculus above central window. INTERIOR: with tall unfluted Ionic columns supporting arches which cut into the tunnel vaulted ceiling. Galleries between the columns. Chapel of St Mary & St John domed with circular lantern. Chancel decoration, c1883, by TG Jackson who also designed the pavement, Willis organ case, inlaid choir stalls, panelling, chandelier, railings and intertwining double gold decorative pattern over much of the church. Stained glass of west windows designed by Professor Ellis Wooldridge, executed by Powell. Much of the rest of the glass designed, executed and given by Alfred Bell of Clayton & Bell, who also designed the marble font with Ionic columns to incorporate a 1747 bowl; gallery window dedicated to Sir George Gilbert Scott, Bell's tutor. Lady Chapel window by Joan Fulleylove. Mid C18 pulpit

cut down to present size by Cockerell, 1878. Many wall monuments including those to Rev. Thomas Ainger by Sir George Gilbert Scott, John Keats, Joanna Baillie, JH Merivale, Frances Erskine, TN Longman, Henry Cort and others. Oldest tomb in the church that of James Rixton, buried 1658 in the old church. (RCHME: London, Vol. II, West London: London: -1925: 39; Clarke B: Parish Churches of London: London: -1966: 77; Victoria County History: Middlesex: Vol. IX, Paddington and Hampstead Parishes: Oxford: -1989: 146-48).

Listing NGR: TQ2619085615