The church is of provincial Gothic design: brick and New England quarried brownstone with a distinctive Buckingham Slate roof in alternating fish scale and diamond patterns.
Flagstones at the front entrance were salved from the Jarratt Hotel which stood at the corner of Washington and Union streets until 1902, receiving visits from two United States' presidents, Polk and Grant, as well as other prominent figures.
The Right Reverend Alfred Magill Randolph, first bishop of the Diocese of Southern Virginia, preached the first sermon in the new church building.
The Reverend Churchill Gibson was called as rector three separate times and a marble tablet dedicated to his service at Saint John's marks the entrance to the Good Shepherd Chapel.
A marble tablet on the east wall is a memorial to the young men and women who served in World War II.