Clerkenwell Road separates the site of St John Clerkenwell, former priory church, from the St John's Priory gateway. The Order of St John, which fundraises for St John's Ambulance now owns and manages a chapel and delightful garden behind the entrance.
Clerkenwell 101
41 The Priory was founded around 1144 on ten acres granted by the same man who founded the nearby St Mary’s nunnery, Jordan de Bricet. It was a priory of the Monastic Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem. The Hospitallers cared for anyone, without distinction of race or faith. After the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, the Hospitallers also took on a military role. They became known as the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. The inner precinct to the Priory was entered via St John’s Gate.
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42 A circular footprint of the ancient round nave, from the very first Hospitaller church built around 1144, can be seen in St John’s Square. The stone blocks run from the Modern Pantry restaurant, round towards the entrance to the cloister garden.
43 St John’s Priory Cloister Garden was known for its medicinal herbs, which were used by the Knights Hospitallers of St John to care for the sick and wounded knights. The current garden is planted with colourful flowers and fragrant herbs.
44 The Priory’s Great Hall was where, in 1185, Henry II and his barons met to discuss a Crusade to the Holy Land. Unfortunately the Muslim leader Saladin attacked and massacred the Crusaders in 1187.
45 In 1237, a group of around thirty of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem set out from Clerkenwell Priory for the Holy Land to provide medical assistance to the Crusades where they served alongside the legendary Knights Templars. They returned in 1246 to present Henry III with a crystalline vase containing“blood of the saviour”.
46 Between 1600 and 1612, thirty of Shakespeare’s plays were licenced in the Great Hall at St John’s. Some were altered and others even rejected. It was here that the first performance of Twelfth Night took place so the Master of Revels(who had complete authority over both the production and the publication of plays) could judge it.
47 St John’s Priory was noted for its hospitality to travellers. In 1368, Dick Whittington(yes, the bloke in pantos was real) arrived in London to seek his fortune. The Priory took him in and he was allowed to stay there for a while in return for his labour. He went on to become three times Lord Mayor of London(Oh no he didn’t. Oh yes he did...).
48 On June 13th 1381 St John’s Priory was stormed and burned during The Peasant’s Revolt. This was partly because the head of the Order of the Knights of St John, Robert Hales, was also Lord Treasurer of England, responsible for the rather harsh collecting of an onerous poll tax levied to finance the realm’s escapades in the Hundred Years’ War with France. Known to the peasants as‘Hob the Robber’, his head was chopped off the next day.(So the Order no longer had a head.)
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