St John’s Church

Kolkata (Calcutta)


This stone-spired 1787 church is ringed by columns and contains a small, portrait-draped room once used as an office by Warren Hastings, India’s first British governor-general. It's on the right as you enter (entry to the main church is via the rear portico). The tree-shaded grounds have several interesting monuments, including the mausoleum of Job Charnock and the relocated Black Hole Memorial. The church is home to an exquisite painting depicting the Last Supper, by 18th-century German artist Johann Zoffany.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Kolkata (Calcutta) attractions

1. Black Hole Memorial

0.05 MILES

This slender white monolith, standing atop an octagonal base adorned with marble plaques, commemorates those British officials who died in the siege of…

2. Mausoleum of Job Charnock

0.07 MILES

At the rear northwest corner of St John's Church grounds, there's a small gated cemetery partly paved with 18th-century grave stones. The centrepiece of…

3. Town Hall Building

0.14 MILES

The imposing colonnaded cube of the former Town Hall Building dates from 1814. It now hosts Kolkata Panorama, an introduction to the city’s heritage…

4. Darbhanga Statue

0.15 MILES

Majestically bearded and dressed in warrior costume yet sitting merrily cross-legged, this delightful statue gives Maharaja Lakshmeshwar Singh of…

5. Standard Life Building

0.17 MILES

The red-brick Standard Life Building has carved nymphs and wonderful wrought-iron balconies at the rear. Since 2014, work has begun at removing decades of…

6. High Court

0.18 MILES

One of Kolkata’s greatest architectural triumphs, the High Court building was built between 1864 and 1872, loosely modelled on the medieval Cloth Hall in…

7. Raj Bhavan

0.2 MILES

Somewhat resembling the US White House, the grand Raj Bhavan was designed in 1799 along the lines of Kedleston Hall, the Derbyshire home of the Curzon…

8. Banking Museum

0.2 MILES

This professionally presented little museum brings alive the history of Indian banking using paintings, models, seals, weapons and archival materials. A…