Gate Piers And Railings To The Churchyard Of The Former Church Of St John

Gate Piers and Railings to the Churchyard of the Former Church of St John

Two sets of iron and Portland stone railings, gates, and gate piers dating to the early or mid-19th century, associated with the former St John Horsleydown Church on Fair Street.

The railings consist of close-set square-section uprights with spear-shaped finials, set into chamfered Portland stone bases. Arrow-shaped dog-bars run between the feet of the uprights, with small open roundels between their necks. Above and below these roundels run two flat horizontal bands forming a continuous top rail. At approximately 3-metre intervals, groups of four uprights merge to form pilasters, each containing two stacks of ten roundels with inset stamped crosses separated by a vertical bars. Each pilaster is supported behind by two diagonal braces set into concrete blocks at ground level.

The north-western set of railings, located north-west of the Watch House, terminates in a plain brick pier, apparently the remains of a demolished building. The south-eastern set, south-east of the Watch House, contains a small wicket gate set between two slightly modified pilasters with scroll finials. At the south-eastern end are the main gates with two pairs of piers: an inner pair of iron consisting of four pilasters joined in box formation and spanned by a plain semicircular overthrow with a square lamp bracket and gas tap, and an outer pair in Portland stone with moulded cornices and recessed side panels. The double gates themselves resemble the railings but with the double rail dropped to just above the level of the dog-bars.

St John's churchyard was created between 1727 and 1733 on the site of an old militia ground. The church, known as St John Horsleydown, was built at the expense of the Fifty New Churches Commission, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and John James. The Vicarage was erected at the same time. A Watch House was added to the churchyard around the turn of the 19th century, likely to prevent body theft for medical experimentation, and was extended soon afterwards. The south-eastern railings, gates, and gate piers were probably erected in the early 19th century, while the north-western railings were added later following the demolition of terraced houses along Fair Street. In 1882 the churchyard was laid out as a public park. The church itself was damaged during the Second World War and subsequently demolished, with its plinth later incorporated into the London City Mission offices built on the site in 1972–6.