Order of St John of Jerusalem
The Order of St John of Jerusalem combined religion, crusading military might and the care of the sick. 1309-1522 the primary home of the Order was the island of Rhodes opposing invasion by the Ottoman Empire. The members of the order were also known as the Knights Hospitaller or the Knights of Malta.
Priory of St John of Jerusalem
Founded in 1144 the Priory in Clerkenwell was the Order's English headquarters. A gift of ten acres was divided into an Inner and Outer Precinct. St John’s Gate allowed access from the Outer to the Inner Precinct. The outer boundary was formed by the present-day: St John Street, Peter's Lane, Cowcross Street, Turnmill Street, Clerkenwell Green, Aylesbury Street. A London Inheritance has a very useful map as well as a full history.
The Priory was broken up c.1540 in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The Order of St John was reconstituted in 1888, and based in St John’s Gate. Its full name is Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem. The previous year it had set up the St John Ambulance Association.
Church of the Priory of St John of Jerusalem
The Church of the Priory of St John of Jerusalem was built 1144-60. Originally with a circular footprint it was reconstructed with a rectangular plan. Following the Dissolution the building ceased operating as a church, until 27 December 1723 when it was consecrated as St John’s Clerkenwell, the second parish church (the first being St James’s in Clerkenwell Close.) In 1931 the two parishes remerged and St John’s church was returned to the modern Order of St John, which had already been using it and funding its maintenance since being reformed.
The church and some buildings to the south were largely destroyed in the 1941 Blitz, leaving only the original outer walls of the church. The current buildings by architects Paul Paget and John Seely were completed in 1958. They comprise: the reinstated church; an entrance hall to the church and crypt, with a curved front to the square, and a 'guard-house', screening the memorial cloister from the roadway and containing a robing-room and vestibule on the ground floor, and a caretaker's flat above. From the guard-house, a porticoed archway leads to the cloister garden. The guardhouse houses a small historical display. This building and the cloister garden are free to visit and open most days.
A London Inheritance have two excellent posts on St John's Gate and the Priory. For the buildings British History Online is an excellent resource. Wikipedia's page on the modern day Order of St John is very useful especially regarding the abstruse structure, organisation and titles.
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