Church Of St George

TR 3865 SW 9/64

RAMSGATE BROAD STREET (east side) Church of St George

GV I

Parish church. 1824-27, originally by Henry Hemsley, continued with alter- ations by H.E. Kendall. Interior restored 1884 by William White. White brick and stone dressings with slate roof. Nave with aisles, chancel with vestries, west tower with western porches to nave aisles. Pre-archaeological mixture of Gothic styles. Tall west tower of 2 stages with octagonal lantern connected by flying buttresses to parapet and pinnacles. Triple offset angle buttresses on moulded plinth, with string course. Two light belfry openings with crocketted ogee hoods, and traceried panels below containing clockfaces. Three light reticulated and perpendicular-mix west window. Western, south-west and north-west doors with perpendicular style panelling in massively crocketted ogee hoods, with stiffleaf capitals to attached columns (i.e. Early English style), with flights of steps, the western doorway especially grand with rails, footscrapers and swan-neck iron lamp standards. Gabled western porches with Perpendicular tracery (integral with doorways). Nave with triple lancet clerestory lights (i.e. C13 style) Geometric 2 light aisle windows (i.e. C14 style), offset buttresses on plinth, battlements and pinnacles to aisles and nave roof (i.e. C15 style). Shallow canted apse for chancel, with buttresses and battlements, with tall perpendicular style lights, octagonal flanking turrets and doubled chimney stacks, with low brick vestries at ground level (in part extensions of 1884). Interior: 8 bay nave arcades, with lofty moulded arches on clustered columns, with clerestory windows carried down by panelled bases on string course. Ribbed vaulted roof. Crocketted chancel arch with flanking panelled arches. Galleries to aisles with blind arcaded sides, on cast iron columns, with plastered roofs on moulded and braced cross beams. C19 fittings by White, early C20 chancel screen. Wall painting on west wall, From Darkness To Light, 1885 by Henry Weigall (a resident of Ramsgate - Southwood House). Stained glass 1961 by A.E. Buss. Cost of Church given as £32000 (Busson) or £23,034 (B.O.E.). £13000 given by church commissioners (£9000, B.O.E.), £3000 by citizens of Ramsgate, £1000 by Trinity House who used (and still use) the tower as a landmark (as was Holy Trinity Margate before destruction). Despite the mixing of styles (probably a result of the change of architects early on) and thin details, the building is well above the Georgian Gothick norm. (See B.O.E. Kent II 1983, 425-6; see also Busson, Ramsgate, 38, 40, 78 and 136.)

Listing NGR: TR3816665212