This inscription is now affixed to a pillar on the north side of the church. With respect to its foundation by Ethelred, we find the following curious passage, quoted from an early writer by King and others:—“King Ethelred minding to build a church, was told that where he should see a white hind there he should build a church; which white hind he saw in the place where St. John’s Church now standeth, and in remembrance whereof, his picture was placed in the wall of the said church, which yet standeth on the side of the steeple, towards the west, having a white hind in his hand.” According to William of Malmsbury, St. John’s was repaired and richly endowed by Leofric, Earl of Mercia, in 1057, and it is shortly afterwards thus noticed in Doomsday Book:—“Ecclesia Sancti Johanius, in civitate habét viii. domos, quietas ab omné consuetudine: una ex his est matricularii ecclesiæ; aliæ sunt canonicorum.” The seat of the See, which for some centuries after the conquest fluctuated between Chester, Coventry, and Lichfield, was, in 1075, fixed for a time in the Church of St. John, by Peter, then Bishop, which may be taken as a sufficient proof of the wealth and grandeur of the foundation, even at this early period. The succeeding Bishop, Robert de Limesey, having removed the seat of the See to Coventry, St. John’s returned to its former collegiate establishment, but was long afterwards considered and denominated one of the three Cathedrals of the diocese, and retained in its immediate neighbourhood a palace of the Bishop, and the mansion of the Archdeacon of Chester—the remains of its former importance. At the dissolution in 1547, the college consisted of one dean, seven prebends, four vicars, a clerk, and a sexton. “In this church,” says Dr. Cowper, “was an ancient rood, or image of wood, of such veneration, that in a deed dated March 27, 1311, confirmed by Walter Langton, the church was called the _Church of the Holy Cross and St. John_.” “There can be little doubt, on the whole,” says Ormerod, “that some monastic foundation, dedicated to the Holy Cross, had, previously to this, merged in the college of St. John.” In 1468 the old steeple, which stood between the nave and the chancel, fell in, and destroyed great part of the choir. In 1470 the steeple was rebuilt, and the whole church covered with lead at the expense of the parishioners, to whom certain immunities were granted by the Dean on that account. In 1548, a commission was granted to certain gentlemen of Cheshire to survey the colleges, &c., within the county; in virtue whereof a return (now in the Augmentation Office) was made, wherein the annual rent of the college of St. John, arising from lands, tithes, &c., is reckoned at £146 5s. The church plate is estimated in the same return at 465 ounces; the weight of the five bells, 4,000 lbs.; lead in and upon the church, 78 tons; and goods and ornaments for the use of the clergy to the value of £40 19s. 9d.