St John'S Church With St Peter'S And Churchyard Wall And Gates

St John's Church with St Peter's and churchyard wall and gates is an Anglican church in Islington, built between 1826 and 1828 by Sir Charles Barry. The church is constructed of white Suffolk brick laid in Flemish bond with stone dressings, with the roof concealed behind a parapet.

The building comprises a chancel and nave under one roof, north and south aisles, and a west tower. The east end is gabled with diagonal buttresses terminating in pinnacles. The east window has five lights with one transom and rectilinear tracery. The aisles are of seven bays, each with four-centred-arched windows of two lights and trefoiled tracery, flanked by buttresses with one offset. The outer two bays have Tudor-arched entrances, and the inner five bays have windows with one transom. The clerestory windows have segmental-pointed arches with two trefoiled lights beneath a hoodmould.

The west end features a pointed-arched entrance under an ogee hoodmould with brattishing, with doors decorated with rectilinear panelling. Above this is a lancet window. The entire west end is flanked by diagonal buttresses rising to pinnacles, with the entrance flanked by buttresses that become setback at tower level. The tower's first stage displays clocks set within a square panel with foliage carving, and louvred two-light openings with rectilinear tracery at the bell stage. The tower is topped with an embattled parapet and corner pinnacles.

The exterior features cast-iron rainwater heads with trefoiled panels at the east and west ends of the north aisle. A parish room dating from 1874 is attached to the east end of the south aisle. Walls of white brick with stone coping enclose the churchyard on the north, west and south sides. Two pairs of iron gates face Holloway Road, with additional gates to St John's Grove of later date.

The interior has undergone alterations over time. Originally, the pulpit, a narrow rank of seats, and the font occupied what is now the central aisle. The chancel fittings were largely added around 1900 and remain in keeping with the original design. The church interior comprises a shallow chancel, nave, north and south aisles, with galleries on the north, south and west sides, plus inner and outer vestibules. The walls are plastered, and the outer aisle walls have a low dado with attached seating.

The chancel has a sexpartite vault and features a reredos and panelling of 1901. The reredos has two central panels flanked by two slightly canted narrower wings, divided by engaged columns and decorated with ogee-patterned blank tracery on the central panels and distorted Tudor-arched patterns on the wings. The wings contain painted decoration dating from 1906. The central panels are brattished at the top with crocketed finials on the outer columns. The panelling is decorated with blank intersecting tracery beneath a deep cove with brattishing above. The floor is covered with encaustic tiles, and brass communion rails date from 1877.

The nave arcade comprises six bays with a seventh unarcaded bay where the west gallery extends over the inner vestibule. The arcade features pointed arches with slim vault shafts supporting the roof trusses and a horizontal moulding running just above the arches' apex. The clerestory windows have moulded architraves formed as slim columns with archivolt and a blank lower section decorated with shields set in quatrefoils. The galleries are carried on arcade columns and additionally on slim wooden columns at the west end, with panelled fronts decorated with blank ogee tracery. The roof is carried on shallow arched trusses and divided into panels with lozenge-shaped vents at the centre of each bay.

Choir stalls of 1901 occupy the first bay of the nave, with panelled fronts decorated with blank ogee tracery and poppyheads to bench ends. The organ case in the easternmost bay of the north aisle also dates from 1901 and is decorated in keeping with the chancel panelling. A mosaic floor surrounding the choir stalls was added in 1926. The pulpit is octagonal in plan, constructed of oak resting on a marble base with a single shaft square in plan, decorated with cusped and ogee tracery and figures presumed to be the Evangelists. The font, probably mid-Victorian in date, is stone and circular, supported on six squat columns at the west end. The pews throughout the nave and aisles appear to be original box pews.