Church Of St George

Church of St George, Newbold Pacey

A church dating from the 11th century, substantially rebuilt after a fire in 1880–2 by the architect J L Pearson. The building is constructed of dressed coursed limestone with ashlar dressings, and is roofed with steeply pitched red old tiles with ornamental cresting.

The plan comprises a 2-bay chancel with catslide vestry and organ loft, a 3-bay nave, a 3-stage saddleback north-west tower containing a porch, a south transept, and a catslide south aisle. The style is Early English. Ornamentation includes plain cornices, sill courses, windows with hood moulds featuring roughed-out stops, and three iron gable crosses.

The chancel has a stepped triplet of lancets to its east end, with 2-light windows with quatrefoils above to the vestry. The north side has a gabled buttress between 3-light windows with lancet tracery. The south side contains an entrance with 3 lights to the left and 2 to the right, plus a truncated lateral stack to the right. The nave's north side has two 3-light windows with lancet tracery.

The tower features an arch of 2 orders to the porch with a hood mould continued as a sill course. A re-set 12th-century inner doorway of single order has lattice diaper and interlacing to the capitals, with billet and cable mouldings to the hood; a mass dial is positioned to the right. The second stage has a lancet and cinquefoils to the returns. The bell-stage is recessed, with a sill course, clasping buttresses, and a corbel table; it has pairs of louvred bell-openings and similar openings to the gables, topped with a weathervane. The west end has 4 lancets with a sexfoil above, and 2-light plate tracery to the aisle. The transept has a 3-light plate-tracery window; the aisle has a re-set 12th-century round-headed doorway with a plain arch framed by roll moulding with bases and imposts decorated with cable reeding, a plank door with enriched strap hinges, and 2 south windows matching that to the west.

Internally, the arches have hoods with roughed-out stops. The chancel features a waggon roof and a 2-light arcade to the vestry and organ loft. A richly carved reredos displays 3 ogival arches with St Michael and St George flanking Christ in Glory, with flanking curtains. A 2-bay south arcade rests on a quatrefoil pier, with a cusped recess to the east and a segmental-pointed sedilia recess. The chancel arch is richly moulded on triple shafts, with 2 low walls below. The nave has arch-braced collars to the crown post roof, ashlaring, and ogee wind-braces; a 2-bay arcade on round piers includes an octagonal pier to the west of the transept arch. The transept has east and west arches dying into the jambs.

The chancel contains an altar rail on wrought-iron posts and scrolls, and a hexagonal sanctuary lamp with pendant and brattishing, alongside plain furniture. The nave has a polygonal pulpit with moulded stone base and timber panels featuring blind tracery and deep cornice. A timber lectern has an eagle on a wide base with an octagonal shaft. The font comprises an octagonal bowl on a stop-chamfered square pier with 4 squat free-standing shafts.

Memorials include one to Edward Carew, d. 1668, and his infant daughter. A re-set marble memorial to the north wall has an oval recess in an architectural setting featuring a demi-figure with hand on heart and a baby on the ledge in front, a swan-necked pediment with armorial bearings to the centre and sides, and a funeral helm and crest hanging above. A group of re-set tablets on the west wall includes one to William Little, d. 1834, and a Grecian-style wall tablet with relief of Charity.

The east window is by Hardman and Co, with panels in a decorative setting. The glass to the west lights is dated 1886 and 1890. A free-standing stove is positioned in the aisle. A wood panel in the porch records a donation by the Incorporated Church Building Society in 1880.