Church Of St George

Church of St George

A church now in use as a lecture theatre and student accommodation, built between 1821 and 1825 by the architects Hurst and Woodhead. Constructed in ashlar with roofs not visible, the building exemplifies the Perpendicular Revival style.

The church plan comprises a sanctuary, north-east porches, a nave with clerestory, aisles, a south porch, a west tower, and west porches. Pointed arch windows are used throughout.

The exterior features a plinth, buttresses, eaves band, crenellated parapets and gables, and crocketed pinnacles. Windows are lancets with panel tracery and hoodmoulds. The single-bay sanctuary has to its east a transomed 5-light window with ogee hoodmould and finial. Blank returns feature crenellated single-cell porches at the angles, each with a door to the east and a single-light window to the return.

The 6-bay nave has thin wall shafts topped with pinnacles and six 3-light windows on each side lighting the clerestory. The 6-bay aisles contain 3-light windows in each bay. The south aisle has in its third bay a gabled porch with moulded doorway and hoodmould, featuring a traceried panelled double door and overlight.

The west tower comprises three stages, with angle buttresses topped with crocketed gables and multiple string courses. The first stage has a moulded doorway to the west with ogee hoodmould and finial. The second stage contains a 3-light window. The bell stage features in its lower part a blind arcade with a clock on three sides and a blank roundel to the east; above this are 3-light transomed bell openings on each side. Flanking the tower are canted west porches with moulded west doorways, crocketed hoodmoulds, and traceried panelled double doors with overlights. The north and south returns of these porches have 2-light windows.

Internally, the church has flat panelled cross-beam ceilings, with the nave ceiling featuring thin wall shafts. The sanctuary contains an arch with clustered round shafts set within a larger, more elaborately moulded arch with diagonally set engaged piers. Above this is a Tudor arched panel with traceried plasterwork in the spandrels. The nave displays 6-bay arcades with octagonal piers, moulded capitals, and arches with linked hoodmoulds, with a clerestory sillband above. A blind-arcaded wooden gallery spans the aisles and the west end, carried on clustered cast-iron posts. At the west end stands a central doorway with a moulded arch above framing an apsidal recess in the tower, set within a Tudor arched panel with traceried plasterwork spandrels. The aisles have sloping ceilings and traceried cast-iron brackets. At the east ends are traceried wooden screens defining vestries. Central and side entrances to the west have traceried panelled doors; the central lobby has traceried panelled walls. On each side of the tower are cantilevered stone winder staircases.

The church retains a traceried wooden reredos and an octagonal marble and alabaster font. A stained glass east window dates to the 19th century. Two wooden war memorial tablets in Decorated style date to around 1920, along with a resited war memorial tablet from St Luke's Church of the same period. Other memorials date from the mid and late 19th century. Fittings and floors have been largely removed.