St. John’s Church

Address: Council House Street 
Timing: Mon-Sat 10am-4pm 
Entry: free
Older than St. Paul’s and more historically significant, though visited far less. Built 1787, borrowing its Corinthian portico and steeple from St. Martin-in-the-Fields, though soft Calcutta subsoil forced a squatter, more tropical form. The churchyard is the real draw: the octagonal mausoleum of Job Charnock, the merchant-administrator traditionally (and disputedly) credited with founding Calcutta, built of granite now named charnockite in his honour; the Rohilla War Cenotaph; and Curzon’s original Black Hole memorial, relocated here in 1940. Inside, a Last Supper once attributed to Rubens is now credited to Johann Zoffany, who painted local Calcutta residents in the guise of the apostles.