The building was designed by the Tasmanian government civil engineer and architect, Dublin-born John Lee Archer who had been appointed in 1826 and arrived in Hobart Town in August 1827.

The Tasmanian governor George Arthur upgraded the plan for a chapel to a parish church for the surrounding area, to be funded by donations.

[5]It was convicts who built the church, after making the raw materials such as hand-made bricks for the walls, hand-hewn stone for the tower, and timber beams cut from trees on nearby Mount Wellington.

[8]As described by Archer's biographer, Roy Smith: "The tower of St. John's Church, New Town is carried out in freestone in a simple pointed Gothic style, with a battlemented top and with octagonal buttresses finishing as pinnacles.

[11] Imported cedar wood was used to construct and carve the pulpit, designed to be imposing at a height of four metres (over 13 feet), with three decks.

[13] A small side-chapel, the Narthex, was dedicated on 26 April 1987 to the memory of Margaret Anne Hemsley, who had been a valued parishioner, active in the service of the community.

[14] Documents and photographs about the history of the church and its congregation are stored and displayed in a room set aside for the purpose, dedicated to the memory of Catherine Latta.

[15] As Whiteley records in her blog (exhibiting photographs of the church together with much historical information): There was both an Anglican & a Catholic cemetery on site until the 1870s.

The church's architect John Lee Archer changed careers, becoming a magistrate in the north west of Tasmania after being retrenched in Hobart in 1838.