Church Of St George

Church of St George

This is a parish church with 15th-century origins, substantially altered and restored in the 19th and 20th centuries. The tower, which is of particular architectural interest, was built in 1673 by George Harris using hand-made bricks manufactured in the parish by James Moore at a cost of £22 5s 4d. A major restoration and partial rebuilding was carried out in 1882 by E.H. Harbottle.

The building comprises a stone rubble nave and aisle, a snecked stone chancel and porch, and a Flemish bond brick tower, all with a slate roof. The plan consists of a nave with a three-bay north arcade, a chancel, a west tower, a south porch, and a north-east vestry.

The tower is Gothic in form despite its late 17th-century date. It has a stone plinth, diagonal buttresses with set-offs and battlements, all constructed in hand-made brick. The round-headed belfry openings contain pierced boards in the heads below louvres, and there is a rectangular opening on the south side at bellringer's stage. The west side features a cusped lancet instead of a west door, probably a 19th-century remodelling of an earlier plainer opening.

The chancel has diagonal buttresses and an 1882 three-light Perpendicular traceried east window and a two-light south window. On the south side of the nave, there are two Perpendicular three-light traceried windows, much repaired, with the western window retaining carved medieval label stops including one showing a pair of wrestlers. The north aisle has a three-light Perpendicular traceried east window and two square-headed, probably early 16th-century north windows with traceried lights.

The 19th-century gabled vestry has a two-light window with a segmental arched light on the west side and a segmental arched stone doorframe. The porch, rebuilt in 1882, is snecked stone with a trefoil-headed niche in the gable and a moulded rounded outer doorframe. The interior porch has an arched brace roof and an unusual inner doorframe with a deeply-moulded triangular head, possibly 13th-century in date. The inner door is probably 16th-century with a massive lock box and latch.

The interior has plastered walls. There is an asymmetrical 19th-century chancel arch at the junction of the nave and chancel roofs, decorated with a trumpeting angel painted on the arch, carried on paired stone corbels. The nave and chancel have 19th-century ceiled wagons, while the north aisle has a 15th or 16th-century ceiled wagon.

The three-bay arcade is of Beerstone with steep moulded arches and piers with corner shafts and boldly-carved foliage capitals. The tower arch is plain chamfered with a rounded head and run-out stops.

The chancel contains early 20th-century dado panelling, 19th-century commandment boards in round-headed frames, and 19th-century tiling incorporating the symbols of the evangelists. There is a 19th-century trefoil-headed piscina with a hood mould and finial. The pulpit, lectern, reading desk and chancel seats are all memorials dated 1880, with the chancel seats featuring poppyheads and the pulpit an open traceried timber drum on a stone plinth.

The font is probably 15th-century octagonal bowl with a stem decorated with blind tracery, fitted with an 18th-century ogival timber font cover. The nave benches are 19th-century but carefully incorporate medieval fragments found during the 1882 restoration.

There are three wall monuments to members of the Karslake family. Two matching early 19th-century white marble monuments are signed Kendall. The third is a fine monument to William Karslake, died 1769, in coloured and white Italian marble with a weeping cherub leaning on a sarcophagus. Additional late 18th and early 19th-century monuments are also present.

The 1882 restoration involved rebuilding the east and south walls of the chancel, replacing the nave and chancel roofs, rebuilding the porch, opening out the tower arch, replacing tracery and restoring the nave bench ends. Harbottle's restoration was executed in the Perpendicular style to match the existing medieval fabric.