The prevalence of the BAPTIST’S HEAD probably dated from the time when pilgrimages across the sea were considered good works, and the head of St John the Baptist at Amiens Cathedral came in for a large share of visits from English worshippers. The old monkish writers say that in 448 after Christ, the head was found in Jerusalem; in 1206 it was transferred to Amiens, where it was kept in a salver of gold, surrounded with a rim of pearls and precious stones.[396] Various other reasons may be adduced for the prevalence of this sign, as the conspicuous place occupied by St John in the Roman Catholic hagiology, and hence in mediæval plays and mysteries; the festivities of Midsummer, (a day of great moment in London for setting the watch;) and, finally, his being the patron saint of the Knights of Jerusalem. It was doubtless in compliment to those knights that the Baptist’s Head in St John’s Lane, Clerkenwell, was named. This house seems to be the remainder of some noble mansion of Queen Elizabeth’s time; it contains many Elizabethan ornaments, particularly a chimney-piece, with the coats of arms of the Radcliff and Forster families. When the house was adapted to its present purpose, it was distinguished by the head of St John the Baptist in a charger, now gone. Doctor Johnson is said to have been an occasional visitor here, when returning from Edward Cave’s, the editor of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, whose office was close by at St John’s Gate. Goldsmith is also reported to have made frequent calls here, when business of a similar nature led him to the same spot. In later years it became the _house of call_ of the prisoners on their way to the new prison in the parish--a circumstance commemorated by Dodd in the “Old Bailey Registers.” Another St John’s Head is mentioned by Stow in the following accident:-- “The 11th of July (1553) Gilbert Pot, drawer to Ninion Saunders, vintner, dwelling at St John’s Head within Ludgate, who was accused by the said Saunders, his maister, was set on the pillory in Cheape, with both his ears nailed and cleane cut off, for wordes speaking at the time of the proclamation of Lady Jane; at which execution was a trumpet bloune and a herault in his coat of armes redd his offence, in presence of William Garrard, one of the Sheriffes of London. About 5 of the clocke the same day, in the afternoone, Ninion Saunders, master to the said Gilbert Pot, and John Owen, a gunmaker, both gunners of the Tower, comming from the Tower of London by water in a whirrie and shooting London Bridge, towards the Black Fryers, were drowned at S. Mary Loch[397] and the whirry-man saved by their oars.” To this same saint also refers the JOHN OF JERUSALEM, a sign at the present day in Rosoman Street, Clerkenwell, put up, like the Baptist Head, in remembrance of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, who formerly had their priory in this locality.