St. John the Evangelist

St. John's Westminster. The parish of St. Margaret's Westminster being greatly increased in the number of houses and inhabitants, it was judged necessary to erect one of the fifty new churches within it; this church being finished, was dedicated to St. John the Evangelist; a parish was taken out of St. Margaret's, and the parliament granted the sum of 2500l. to be laid out in the purchase of lands, tenements, &c. for the maintenance of the Rector: but besides the profits arising from this purchase, it was also enacted that as a farther provision for the Rector, the sum of 125l. should be annually raised by an equal pound rate upon the inhabitants. Maitland.

This church was finished in the year 1728. The chief aim of the architect was to give an uncommon, yet elegant outline, and to shew the orders in their greatest dignity and perfection; and indeed the outline is so variously broken, that there results a diversity of light and shadow, which is very uncommon, and very elegant. The principal objections against the structure are, that it is so much decorated that it appears encumbered with ornament; and that the compass being too small for the design, it appears too heavy. In the front is an elegant portico supported by Doric columns, which order is continued in pilasters round the building. Above the portico are two towers crowned with well-proportioned turrets, and adorned with columns of the Corinthian order, which are supported on pedestals, and stand free, with corresponding columns behind. English Architect.

The advowson of this church is in the Dean and Chapter of Westminster: and to prvent this rectory being held in commendam, all licences and dispensations for holding it are by act of parliament declared null and void.

St. John the Evangelist's Church, Westminster,—op. 18, Millbank-st. entering by the third on the R. about ¼ of a mile from the Abbey.

St. John the Evangelist, Westminster, is situated in a small square or close, southward of the Abbey, and between Milbank-street and Tufton-street. It is one of the fifty new churches voted by parliament in Queen Anne's reign, and was designed by Archer, a contemporary of Hawksmoor and Vanburgh, to the latter of whom it has been erroneously attributed. The four towers of the angles of the building, which resemble colossal legs of an inverted butcher's block, would have been beautiful accompaniments to the central tower and spire that was intended by the architect.

This paris was taken from that of St. Margaret, Westminster, by act of parliament. The church is a rectory, in the county and archdeaconry of Middlesex, in the diocese of London, and in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Middlesex. The present rector is the Rev. H.H. Edwards, a prebendary of Westminster, and rector of Llanrwst, with the curacy of Capel Garmon; who was instituted in 1827.

John (St.) The Evangelist, Westminster, stands in the centre of Smith Square. It was begun in 1716, and consecrated June 20, 1728. The architect was Thomas Archer. "The church of St. John with four belfreys" Walpole cites as "the chef d'œuvre of his absurdity." It has been likened to "a parlour table upset, with its legs in the air," on account of its belfries at the four angles. These belfries formed no part of the original design, but the soil on which it was built was swampy, and the edifice when far advanced began to settle unequally. The architect then devised these massive angle turrets in the hope of ensuring an equal pressure over the whole foundation. They answered their purpose, but they, and the memory of the architect, have ever since had to sustain a heavy load of ridicule.¹ The interior is spacious and convenient. The church was injured by fire in 1741, galleries were added in 1758, and increased in 1821 by William Inwood, one of the architects of St. Pancras Church. The painted glass in the east window is from an old church in Rouen. In the burial-ground of St. John's lies a Donald Grant, D.D., on whose tombstone it is recorded that "the whole of his ecclesiastical emoluments, during a ministry of forty-four years in the Established Church of England, amounted to £743:8:5." Charles Churchill, the satirist, was, for some time, curate and lecturer of this church. His father filled the same office before him, and with so much satisfaction to his hearers that, as a mark of respect for his memory, his son was elected his successor. "Need, not choice," he tells us, induced him to accept the post, and here he preached those sermons of which he relates the effect in verse:—

Sleep at my bidding crept from pew to pew.

At length his character became so notorious that the parishioners lodged a formal complaint against him; he resigned his cure, and sought in satire the means wherewith to live.

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¹ In the Crowle Pennant in the Museum is "Mr. Archer's Design of St. John's Church, Westminster, as it was resolved upon by the Commissioners." This is a very different design from the existing church.

St. John the Evangelist. In Smith Square, which lies between Wood Street and Romney Street, is a singular building, which a stranger would never be likely to take for a church, and yet it is a church—that of St. John the Evangelist, and it is one of the fifty churches built in and about the metropolis in the reign of Queen Anne. The Act of Parliament under which this church was built is commemorated by Tickell in his "Epistles" thus:—

"The pious Town sees fifty churches rise."

Its architect was not Vanbrugh, as is often stated, but a Mr. Archer, who certainly seems to have defied all the rules of architecture, loading the heavy structure with still heavier ornamentation, by building at each of the four angles a stone tower and a pinnacle of ugliness that passes description. In front is a portico supported by Doric columns, and the same order is continued, after a fashion, in pilasters round the building. It has, also, on the north and south sides other porticos, supported by massive stone pillars. Over the communion-table is a painted window, representing the "Descent from the Cross." The author of "A New Review of the Public Buildings," &c., published in 1736, speaks of "the new church with the four towers at Westminster" as an ornament to the city, and deeply regrets that a vista was not opened from Old Palace Yard, so as to bring its "beauty" fairly into view! Some idea of the writer's taste may be formed when our readers learn that he proposed, as a further improvement, to dwarf the said four towers, "cutting them off in the middle, like those of Babel!"