As an ancient site in London, connected to a religious and military Order involved in most significant goings on in history, the team at the Museum were astonished to discover that Marty McFly’s time travel never brought him to our door.  As St John’s Gate is surely the first, and most important stop on any trip through history, we thought that we would rectify this situation, and let Marty know what he has been missing.

In 1885, the Old Jerusalem Tavern, not unlike the saloons frequented by Marty and Doc Brown in this same year, was slowly but surely being moved on from St John’s Gate by the new owner, Sir Edmund Lechmere.  In this year the first renovations to this building began, in an effort to return the building to the grandeur of its medieval heyday.  The Great Chamber (now the Council Chamber) was refurbished in a Tudor Gothic style by John Oldrid Scott, and Marty would have seen the beginnings of the style that would go on to characterise the gradual but complete restoration of St John’s Gate.

In 1955, Marty would have discovered that building work was just beginning to reconstruct the Priory Church of the Order of St John.  All but destroyed by two firebombs in 1941, Lord Mottistone, of the architects Seely and Paget, oversaw the reconstruction that took place between 1955 and 1958.  He incorporated earlier architectural survivals alongside a red brick exterior and flat roof.  Marty would have seen this regeneration, in contrast to the unfortunate demise of the clock in Hill Valley…

As Marty wended his way to St John’s Gate in 1985, his DeLorean would have come acropper with a bollard as he entered this noteworthy year, as traffic was diverted away from the arch of St John’s Gate.  The damaging vibrations of the busy traffic passing under the Gate prompted the Council to pedestrianize the area.  The flying DeLorean of 2015, however, would not be subject to such traffic calming measures.  Rather like Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda.