It is sited at the west end of Princes Street at its junction with Lothian Road, and is protected as a category A listed building.

[1] The church was dedicated as St John's Chapel on Maundy Thursday 1818 with construction having begun in 1816.

[citation needed] The plaster ceiling vault is derived from that found in the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey.

[citation needed] An Ethiopian tabot, a replica of Moses' Tablets of Law, was discovered in storage at St John's Church, and was returned in February 2002 to Addis Ababa.

The first marriage of a couple of the same gender inside an Anglican church in the British Isles was solemnised at St John's in September that year with the rector presiding.