St John's Church or the Church of Saint John the Evangelist is the parish church in

Stratford, London Stratford is a town and district of West Ham, East London, England, in the London Borough of Newham. Part of the Lower Lea Valley, it is northeast of Charing Cross, and includes Maryland and East Village. Historically an ancient parish in ...

, standing on Stratford Broadway, the main thoroughfare. The site was previously home to a "Forest Prison" that incarcerated those who committed offences against the Royal Forest of Waltham, which is now known as

Epping Forest Epping Forest is a area of ancient woodland, and other established habitats, which straddles the border between Greater London and Essex. The main body of the forest stretches from Epping in the north, to Chingford on the edge of the Lond ...

. The gaol was built around 1620 and the building remained until 1827. The church was built between 1832 and 1834 by

Edward Blore Edward Blore (13 September 1787 – 4 September 1879) was a 19th-century English landscape and architectural artist, architect and antiquary. Early career Blore was born in Derby, the son of the antiquarian writer Thomas Blore. Blore's backg ...

in the Early English style using grey brick. The most notable feature is a three-stage tower, surmounted by a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

which is supported with

flying buttress The flying buttress (''arc-boutant'', arch buttress) is a specific form of buttress composed of a ramping arch that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass, to convey to the ground the lateral forces that push a wall ou ...

es. It is a Grade II

Listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. It was built as a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...

to save worshippers the journey to the ancient parish church of All Saints West Ham; St John's Stratford became a separate

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

in 1844. The poet

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Society of Jesus, Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among the leading English poets. His Prosody (linguistics), prosody – notably his concept of sprung ...

was

baptised Baptism (from ) is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by aspersion, sprinkling or affusion, pouring water on the head, or by immersion baptism, immersing in water eit ...

in the church as an infant in August 1844. Part of St John's parish was split off in 1865 to provide a parish for St Paul's Church, Stratford, previously a mission church. In 1881 another part of St John's parish was also joined to parts of the parishes of All Saints and Emmanuel Church to form a new parish for the church of St James' Church, Forest Gate. The naturalist and social reformer Antonio Brady is buried in the churchyard in 1881; an extension to the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

of the church was constructed in his memory in 1884. A memorial to the Stratford Martyrs was added to the churchyard in 1879. In World War II, the church

crypt A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) ''wikt:crypta#Latin, crypta'' "Burial vault (tomb), vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, Sarcophagus, sarcophagi, or Relic, religiou ...

served as an

air raid shelter Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack (but ...

for local people, despite bomb damage to the building itself. In 1961 St John's took over the parish of the deconsecrated Christ Church, Stratford. A new extension was added in 1998. Between 1988 and 1994, the church was the "home" of the influential post-rock group Bark Psychosis, who rehearsed in the crypt. This would also serve as a recording space for the band, where they first recorded the single ''Scum'' (1992), followed by their debut album '' Hex'' (1994).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Johns Church Stratford 1834 establishments in England John's Stratford 19th-century Church of England church buildings