Church Of St George

Church of St George, New Mills

This is a large church built in 1829–30 by R D Chantrell in the lancet style. Chantrell was a pupil of Sir John Soane and designed at least 25 churches between 1823 and 1850. The chancel was added in 1897–98 by Preston and Vaughan in a matching style, with further refurbishment to the chancel interior in the 1950s. The building is constructed of squared masonry brought to course with freestone dressings and slate roofs.

The church plan comprises a galleried nave, chancel, west tower, and northeast and northwest vestries.

The exterior displays accomplished decorative detail throughout. The chancel features clasping buttresses with gabled detail that rise as octagonal pinnacles with spirelet finials. A shallow gable frames a very tall triple lancet east window with a continuous hoodmould. The northeast and northwest vestries have angle buttresses, coped parapets and lancet windows. The seven-bay nave is articulated by tall buttresses beneath a dentil eaves cornice. The lancet windows have roll-moulding carried on shafts. The gallery stair blocks have angle buttresses, coped parapets and high-set west lancet windows. The south block contains a south doorway with a roll-moulded arch on shafts and gables above. The west tower is particularly distinguished: slender in proportion with very large angle buttresses marked by set-offs that terminate in octagonal pinnacles with spire finials. A projecting stair turret on the north face has its own chamfered doorway. The tower carries a recessed spire with two tiers of lucarnes. The west doorway is set in a shallow projecting gabled porch with two orders of shafts and a double roll-moulded arch. A tall lancet west window with shafts sits in a chamfered opening, with lancet belfry windows above.

The interior is plastered and painted. Rather than a traditional chancel arch, there is a square-headed opening to the sanctuary framed by a timber chancel screen with a commemoration date of 1954. The screen is executed in a conservative style for its date, featuring large cusped openings, coving, cresting and rood figures. Integral with the screen is a polygonal timber pulpit entered from inside the chancel, with buttresses to each face, carved decoration and linenfold panelling. An arched west doorway beneath the west gallery leads into the tower. The nave ceiling is plastered with slightly cranked moulded cross-beams springing from short shafts on moulded corbels. Three-sided galleries run around the interior on clustered cast-iron columns with depressed segmental arches between them. The gallery fronts are decorated with modest Gothick blind tracery. The west gallery has a central square-headed opening into the tower flanked by two chamfered arched doorways on each side. Stone gallery stairs provide access. The chancel contains a timber reredos of approximately 1950, divided into panels with painted timber figures under canopies and a crested traceried frame rising above a central Crucifixion figure. The south wall of the chancel retains 1890s trefoil-headed sedilia and piscina. Choir stalls have ends with roundel finials and a frieze of open tracery. Nave benches have shouldered ends of complex profile. The font, dating to the late 19th century, comprises an octagonal stone bowl with an embattled cornice, decorated with carved angels on its sides, set on an octagonal stem with pink marble shafts and carved capitals. The stained glass includes a window dated 1893 signed by Powell Bros of Leeds, another signed by Jones and Willis dated 1913, and an east window dated 1952. The organ case is noted by Pevsner as dating to 1835 and made by Samuel Renn.