Faith in the City - St John's Church

Two views of St John's Church, one at street level in needlepoint by Patricia Andrews (260 hours) and the other hand painted and stitched by Gill Cook (no hours recorded). James Brown, who makes the pictorial maps of Leeds, designed the aerial perspectives of the churches on the Faith Panel.

When John Harrison had this church built in 1631-4, entirely at his own expense, the Archbishop of York at first refused to consecrate it. He was one of the clergy who wanted to get back to the elaborate ceremonies of Roman Catholicism and suspected Harrison of puritanism.

Leeds Daily Photo Blog visited the interior last year. I'm ashamed to say I've not been inside the building which apparently includes work by the woodcarver Francis Gunby who was also involved in the contemporary remodelling of Temple Newsam House. Now on the to do list.

Faith in the City - John Harrison (1579-1656)

The fourth Leeds worthy represented in City Square is John Harrison. He appears on the Faith Panel as a member of the Pious Uses Committee, set up in 1619 to administer local charities, some of which still benefit the people of Leeds today.

He was a cloth merchant and landlord who used the rents from his properties to help in building St John's Church and the second (?) Grammar School (on a site between North Street and The Grand Theatre), replacing the building at the top of Lady Lane.

A favorite story about him is that he cut holes in the doors and ceilings of his home to allow his cats free access around the house - is this one of the earliest records of cat-flaps? Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) has also been cited with this invention.

There is a John Harrison on the Local Faces panel, born near Wakefield in 1693. On the face of it he shouldn't be represented, but more of him later.

I'd completely forgotten that when we went to see the statue it was just after Jeans for Genes Day and we had to ask a workman to remove Mr Harrison's jeans before taking the photograph.

Janet Taylor hand and machine embroidered this piece on printed fabric.