Museum of the Order of St John

The Museum of the Order of St John occupies St John's Gate, the 1504 entrance to the English priory of the Knights Hospitaller in Clerkenwell. The Tudor gatehouse survived the Reformation, the Great Fire, and the Blitz, remaining London's last visible relic of the order's medieval presence. The exhibition follows the order from its origins as a pilgrim brotherhood at Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre through Rhodes and Malta to the Victorian rebirth of the Protestant St John Ambulance, today the nation's leading first-aid charity. Knights' armour, illuminated statutes, a Flemish altarpiece, and historic ambulance kits are on view. The adjoining Priory Church Garden holds a Norman crypt from 1140. Free entry.