St. John’s Parish Church

St. John’s Parish Church is the first church of St. John that is presumed to have been a simple wooden building, but its date is unknown.

The parish along with St. George, was carved out of St. Michael in 1640–1641. But successive churches were badly damaged by the hurricane of 1675, the Great Hurricane of 1780, and finally destroyed by the Great Barbados hurricane of 1831.

The present church building (the fifth) was built is 1836, and the chancel added in 1876. It is the prototype of the restrained Barbadian version of the Gothic parish church, and a beautiful Westmacott sculpture, commemorating Elizabeth Pinder, on the left of the main door.


St. John’s Parish Church is a classic Gothic church situated on a cliff overlooking the picturesque East Coast. This Church was built in 1836 to replace the previous church which had been destroyed by a hurricane in 1831.

In the Church Yard rests the remains of Ferdinando Paleologus, a descendent of Emperor Constantine the Great, whose family was driven from the throne of Constantinople by the Turks. Ferdinando died in Barbados in 1678, after being a resident here for over 20 years.