Priory Church Of St John Of Jerusalem

Priory Church of St John of Jerusalem

This Anglican church on the east side of St John's Square contains a crypt dating from circa 1140 and circa 1180, with the main body of the church built partly in the 16th century and partly in 1723 by Simon Michell. The building was restored by Lord Mottistone following bomb damage, around 1958.

The exterior is constructed of coursed rubble stonework and dressed stone, with red, purple and yellow brick set in Flemish bond and dressings of gauged red brick. The roof is copper.

The east end features walls of coursed rubble stonework in the lower parts, dressed stone at window level, and red brick above. An entrance below the northernmost window was formed in yellow brick and concrete, presumably during the 1958 restoration. Three pointed-arched windows with rectilinear tracery and hoodmoulds are set in the east wall, the centre window having five lights and the outer ones four lights. Three buttresses flank the two southernmost windows, with offsets, the northernmost carried up to the parapet in brick.

The south wall comprises three bays with pointed-arched windows featuring hollow- and wave-moulded embrasures and rectilinear tracery. A medieval rubble buttress stands at the east end with brown brickwork above it, followed by three buttresses mostly of dressed stone. These are rectangular in plan up to the offset, then triangular. The two outer buttresses are chamfered with run-out stops, and the westernmost has stops carved with the badge of Prior Docwra and a rose. The middle buttress bears an inscription recording that the area was constructed, the south side of the church extensively repaired, and the window tracery renewed in 1907. A pointed-arched entrance occupies the middle bay. A stone string runs above the buttresses, with a parapet of red brick above.

The west front has two levels of windows arranged in a three-window range, with the middle bay projecting. The bays are divided by stone pilasters with capitals of simple Doric form. Much of the lower part is obscured by a single-storey vestibule added in 1958. The ground-floor left bay has a segmental-arched window with a head of gauged red brick. Upper windows are round-arched with heads of gauged red brick. A cornice of gauged red brick runs below the parapet.

The interior is now a simple rectangular space with a panelled ceiling from Lord Mottistone's restoration of circa 1958. The canopy over the altar, pilasters, brackets and ornaments also date from this restoration, though some elements were rescued from Simon Michell's original work. Twelfth-century footings of columns stand either side of the canopy.

The crypt consists of five bays. The westernmost bay is barrel-vaulted. The next three bays feature round arches and cross-vaults, dating from circa 1140. The final bay has pointed arches and cross-vaults, dating from circa 1180. The arches are moulded and ribbed, springing from triple-clustered shafts. Lancet windows with deep embrasures light the three round-arched bays. North and south chapels, also dating from circa 1180, have pointed arches and cross-vaults.

The crypt contains an alabaster effigy of Don Juan Ruyz de Vergara, dating from circa 1575, formerly in Valladolid cathedral and set on a plinth of 1915. An effigy of Sir William Weston, dating from circa 1540, lies in the north chapel, formerly in St James's church, Clerkenwell.