Church Of St George And Attached Railings, Gates And Lamps

TQ3081NW 798-1/100/113

CAMDEN BLOOMSBURY WAY (North side) Church of St George and attached railings, gates and lamps

24/10/51

GV I Church. 1716-1731. By Nicholas Hawksmoor. Re-ordered 1781, restored 1870 by GE Street and 1972-4 by Lawrence King. Stone faced brick. Rectangular plan of six bays. EXTERIOR: principal south facade with hexastyle Roman Corinthian portico on a podium approached by a broad flight of steps. Arched ground floor openings with segmental-headed openings above. To the west a tower (originally providing a conventional west entrance) with recessed arches on three sides, clock, tetrastyle portico to each facade of the belfry, surmounted by a stepped steeple terminating in a sculptured statue of George I in Roman attire. North facade, facing Little Russell Street, pedimented, two storeys of partly blind arcading on a podium with steps to entrances either side. Podium with five square-headed openings with massive keystones. First floor with Corinthian pilasters supporting entablature, second with Corinthian half-columns. Lunette in pediment. INTERIOR: now north-south orientated. Paired Corinthian columns supporting an entablature and elliptical arch at the south end, behind which a panelled timber gallery and organ. Vestibule below. East wall with small apse (originally for the altar), the moulded and gilded ceiling decoration of pelican and scallop shell flanked by mitres and croziers with winged cherubs in clouds above by Isaac Mansfield. West wall with round-headed entrance to vestibule in the base of the tower and staircase to small round-headed gallery with wrought-iron balcony (originally for the gentry's servants). Current north chancel emphasised by double elliptical arches on entablatures with paired Corinthian columns. (Hawksmoor's design had galleries between these columns to emphasise the east-west orientation.) Original reredos - an aedicule with Corinthian columns and broken pediment. Five-sided, panelled and carved mahogany pulpit also original.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron railings and gates to frontage. Flanking the steps, attached C19 lamps with Windsor lanterns surmounted by cast-iron models of the stepped steeple original design which included lions and unicorns at the base.

HISTORICAL NOTE: St George's was sanctioned by the Fifty New Churches Act of 1711 to relieve parishioners of the northern part of St Giles-in-the-Fields parish from having to cross the notorious Rookery district.The stepped steeple was inspired by Pliny's description of the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus.

Listing NGR: TQ3021081533