Church Of St George

Church of St George

A parish church built in 1907-8, designed by Arthur Conran Blomfield. The church was constructed to serve residents of the new streets then being built over the former brickfields west of Southall Broadway. Its construction was partly financed by the Diocese of London from the sale of the site of St George Botolph Lane, a City church demolished in 1904, from which this new church took its dedication.

The building is constructed of stock brick with red brick and Bath stone dressings, with a clay tile roof and a shingled belfry. It displays Arts and Crafts-influenced Gothic style with paired cusped lancet windows in the aisles and clerestorey. The west window consists of four stepped lancets with tracery heads set within a retaining arch, while the east window has five stepped lancets similarly detailed. The south chapel has a three-light east window of similar design. The roofs are steeply pitched with sprocketed eaves. A shingled belfry with a slender pyramidal spirelet rises above the west gable. The narthex to the west, formerly a baptistery, is a lean-to structure beneath the west window with four single-light windows. Gabled porches with moulded barge-boards and segmental-arched doorways provide entrances to the south-west, south-east and north-west (now blocked).

The plan comprises a broad aisled nave of five bays, with the narthex to the west and entrance porches as described. A chancel with a side chapel to the south is flanked by an organ chamber and vestry to the north.

Interior features include five-bay north and south nave arcades with the two end bays slightly shorter than the others. The arches have mouldings that die into octagonal stone piers. A similar three-bay arcade serves the western narthex, now partitioned to form a kitchen and servery. A tall segmental pointed chancel arch with hood-mould separates the nave from the chancel. The chancel has a mosaic floor, a piscina and sedile in the south wall. The side chapel to the south is now partitioned to form a meeting room. The nave and chancel have arch-braced timber roofs of false-hammerbeam construction, while the aisles and narthex have lean-to roofs. The interior is finished in red brick and stone throughout.

The church contains a notable organ built in 1723 by Abraham Jordan Junior, originally constructed for St George's Botolph Lane in the City of London. It was transferred to Southall and rebuilt when the new church was completed in 1908, retaining much of the old case and pipework. The instrument was rebuilt by the firm of Bishop & Son and received a further restoration in 2009 with the removal of all post-1723 additions. The organ case is richly carved in Baroque style with three bowed projecting bays having corniced heads and putto corbels, connected by two ogee-curved inner bays. It is positioned to the north of the chancel.

A simple octagonal stone font, formerly situated in the narthex, was transferred to the chancel in 2009. A hanging rood and reredos were installed in 1950-1, designed by Francis Stephens of Faith Works Ltd and executed in 1951. The reredos is a triptych depicting, from left to right, the martyrdom of St George, the Magi presenting gifts to the infant Christ, and the foundation of an abbey by St Botolph.

Stained glass is found in the narthex, side chapel and east window. The east window, given as a war memorial in 1922, depicts the Crucifixion and Christ in Majesty, flanked by St Mary, St John, St George and St Nicholas, with flights of angels above.

The church was substantially reordered in 2009, when a new floor was laid throughout the nave and aisles, and the narthex and side chapel were screened off by timber partitions.

Arthur Conran Blomfield (1863-1935) was the younger son of the renowned Victorian church architect Sir Arthur Blomfield (1829-1899). With his older brother Charles, he became a partner in the family practice in 1890 and would have been involved in his father's later projects. The practice continued after Sir Arthur's death, with later commissions including Hollington House at East Woodhay in Hampshire (1904) and St Mellitus Church at Hanwell, Greater London (1909), both Grade II listed.