Church Of St George

Church of St George, Deal

The Church of St George was built between 1706 and 1716 to designs by Samuel Simmons, a local architect, with advice from John James of Greenwich from 1712 onwards. The church began as a chapel of ease to St Leonard's in Upper Deal, funded by subscription. It grew slowly over its ten-year construction period and benefitted after 1712 from a tax on coal imports into the town. The church became an independent parish in 1852.

The building is constructed of red brick with lead roofs and a timber cupola. It is planned as a galleried nave with a small chancel projection and a large complex of vestries and other rooms to the west. The exterior features a pedimented east end surmounted by a small timber cupola. Both the north and south facades comprise five bays with the central bay breaking forward slightly. Most windows are round-headed, except for the central bays on the north and south sides, which have oculi. Large twentieth-century vestries project from the west end.

The interior retains galleries on the north, south and west sides, with an additional upper gallery on the west. These galleries have panelled fronts and are supported by stylised Tuscan columns with very high bases, built to accommodate the former pews. The sanctuary features a panelled barrel vault and fielded timber panelling. A flat, panelled ceiling extends the full width of the nave without intermediate supports.

The church was refurnished in the nineteenth century when its eighteenth-century furnishings were removed, and was again reordered in the early twenty-first century, when virtually all the nineteenth-century furnishings, including most seating, were removed. Royal arms of 1715 remain on the west gallery. Some nineteenth-century benches are retained in the galleries, notably the Corporation pew with a carved mayoral chair and attached bench. An organ case of 1879 with fielded panelling and a pediment with openwork carving is present. A late twentieth-century immersion font is located under the chancel floor. The church contains one hatchment and some eighteenth and early nineteenth-century wall tablets, including a memorial to Elizabeth Carter (1716–1806), the noted poet, translator and member of the Bluestocking circle, who was born nearby. The east window contains glass of 1950, incorporating a fragment of a window of 1867 with the word 'hope' designed to be read from the outside.

The churchyard contains several interesting monuments, notably the tomb of Captain Edward T Parker (1779–1801), a close friend of Admiral Nelson, who paid for the monument himself. The tomb takes the form of a short, square column.

The town of Deal originated as a small fisherman's village at some distance from the village of what is now Upper Deal, but gained importance in the seventeenth century when the harbour at Sandwich silted up, as there was an important naval anchorage just off the coast. The town was incorporated in 1699 and grew rapidly in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The church reflects this period of expansion.

A west tower was added to the church in 1822 and removed in the early twentieth century. A west porch and vestry were added in 1884, with further vestries added in the same year, and another extension was added in 1981.