St John's Gate

It's strange to be back in London after a month in the Italian and English countryside.

This is part of my "One Street" series on Cowcross Street in Clerkenwell. The photo was actually taken about 200 metres north of Cowcross Street. It shows the only remaining gate into the Priory of the Knights of St John. It was built in Tudor times and heavily restored by the Victorians. The church of the Priory was consecrated in 1185 but only its crypt survived bombing in WW2.

The significance for Cowcross Street is that the street was recorded in the 12th century running along the southern boundary of the Priory. Without some lucky archaeology we will probably never know whether the Priory or the street came first.

The gate had a colourful history after the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, including time as a printing house, a coffee house and a tavern. The painter William Hogarth lived there as a child when his father ran the coffee house!

The Knights of St John were the Knights Hospitallers, now called the Order of St John. The gate and adjoining building house the headquarters of the Order and its subsidiary, St John's Ambulance, and their museum.