The lost church of St John the Evangelist stood on the east side of Friday Street at its junction with Watling Street, in Bread Street Ward. It seems its original dedication was to St Werburgh. She was an Anglo-Saxon princess, born ca 650 AD, who became a nun at the convent founded by her great aunt, St Etheldreda. She is the patron saint of the City of Chester. An early deed from 1246 AD mentions a house as being on the corner of Friday street opposite the church of “St. Werburga”. A later deed in 1349 AD records the name of the church as “St. John the Evangelist and St. Wereburga”
We know the church was rebuilt or restored in the 13th Century and this might have been the time when the dedication was changed, with St John the Evangelist added. We know what it looked like from the Copperplate Map of 1555 which shows the church and its tower quite clearly. John Stow in his Survey of London, published in 1598, had this to say :
“Now in Friday street, so called of fishmongers dwelling there, and serving Friday’s market, on the east side, is a small parish church, commonly called St. John Evangelist: the monuments therein be of John Dogget, merchant tailor, one of the sheriffs in the year 1509; Sir Christopher Askew, draper, mayor 1533; William de Avinger, farrier, was buried there in the 34th of Edward III.”
In 1626 the church was repaired again with a new gallery being added. It did not last long. The Great Fire of 1666 destroyed the building and a decision was taken not to rebuild it. The parish was united with All Hallows Bread Street next door (see the parish map below). John Roque’s map of 1746 still shows the churchyard of St John the Evangelist as an open space. All Hallows had been destroyed in the Great Fire too, but it was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren and lasted until 1878 when it was demolished under the Union of Benefices Act. After that both parishes – St John the Evangelist and All Hallows Bread Street – were combined with St Mary le Bow.
You can still find traces of the St John the Evangelist today. There is a parish boundary marker above Boots in New Change and another one in Watling Street. There is also a blue plaque marking the old site of the church near the Reflection Garden. When All Hallows Bread Street was demolished the remains in the churchyard were reinterred in the City of London Cemetery (CLC) under a fine memorial to both churches. Looking through the records at the CLC it seems a site was reserved for reburials from St John the Evangelist but it does not seem to have been used (see photo).
The wikipedia page for St John the Evangelist is here