St. John Zachary’s, a church that was situated at the north west corner of Maiden lane, Wood street; but being destroyed by the fire of London in 1666, and not rebuilt, the parish is annexed to that of St. Anne’s Aldersgate. Maitland.
John’s court, 1. Cable street. 2. Cats hole, Tower ditch. 3. East Smithfield. 4. Hannoway street. 5. John’s street. 6. Nightingale lane.
St. John’s court, 1. Addle hill. 2. Cow lane. 3. Great Hart street. 4. Little Hart street, by Covent garden. 5. St. John’s square. 6. Somerset street, Whitechapel. 7. Stepney.
St. John’s gate, St. John’s lane; the south gate of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem.
John’s hill, Ratcliff highway.
St. John’s lane, vulgarly called St. Joans’s lane, from Hicks’s hall to St. John’s gate.
St. John’s passage, St. John’s street, West Smithfield.
St. John’s square, Clerkenwell. Where the present square is situated anciently stood the house of St. John of Jerusalem, founded by Jordan Briset, who for that purpose purchased of the nuns of Clerkenwell ten acres of land, for which he gave twenty acres in his lordship of Willinghale in Kent, and erected that hospital on this spot about the year 1110: but the church belonging to it was not dedicated to St. John the Baptist till 1185. By the profuse liberality of bigots and enthusiasts, these Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem soon attained to that degree of riches and honour, that they not only built a magnificent structure in this spot, that became the chief seat in England of those of their order, but their Prior was esteemed the first Baron in the kingdom, and in state and grandeur vied with the King. The populace however had an extreme antipathy to these imperious Knights; and in 1381, the rebels under Jack Straw and Wat Tyler consumed this stately edifice by fire. However it was rebuilt in a still more magnificent manner, and thus continued till the year 1541, when it was suppressed by Henry VIII.
This spacious and stately edifice was soon after converted into a repository for martial stores, and of the royal hunting equipage; and to this use it was applied till the year 1550; when Edward Seymour Duke of Somerset, and protector of the kingdom, caused the church, with its lofty and beautiful steeple, to be demolished, and the stones employed in building his magnificent palace of Somerset House in the Strand. Camden’s Britannia.
This square, which is an oblong, chiefly consists of two rows of good houses, at the east end of which is a chapel of ease to the neighbouring church of St. James Clerkenwell. It is entered by two gates, which bear evident marks of great antiquity; the largest and most remarkable of which is that to the south, called St. John’s Gate.