Details
YORK
SE6051SE GEORGE STREET
1112-1/22/364 (East side)
24/06/83 Church of St George and attached
Rectory, gates and railings
GV II
Includes: No.7 St George's Church Rectory PEEL STREET.
Roman Catholic church, rectory, gates and railings. Church
1849-50, Rectory 1856; church altered and restored in 1901 and
1923, further restored and re-ordered in 1989-90. By Joseph
and Charles Hansom.
MATERIALS: church of magnesian limestone ashlar,
cement-rendered in places; Welsh slate roof in three parallel
ranges, with brick stack to sacristy. Rectory of white brick
in English garden-wall bond with ashlar dressings; brick
stacks and stone coping to slate roof.
PLAN: chancel with west bellcote, south chapel, and north
sacristy; 5-bay aisled nave with south porch. Church is
encircled by 2-stage buttresses with offsets.
EXTERIOR: CHURCH: east end: twin-gabled front with 1-storey
2-bay sacristy on high basement to north. 4-centred east
window of 4 trefoiled lights, 2-centred chapel window of 3
trefoiled lights, both with traceried heads and hoodmoulds on
foliate stops. Sacristy has blocked doorway between 2- and
3-light mullion windows, all in chamfered openings with
shouldered heads: inserted flat-topped dormer with 4 pivoting
windows, and ridge stack. Gabled and buttressed bellcote on
chamfered plinth has paired trefoiled openings and quatrefoil
in apex. North side: largely obscured by Rectory and sacristy.
Sacristy has single shouldered light in north gable and
chamfered shouldered doorway in west return.
South side: buttressed and gabled porch has boarded double
doors in pointed opening of 2 continuously moulded orders
beneath hoodmould on foliate stops: returns have square-headed
windows of paired lights with cusped ogee heads. Nave windows
are of 2 trefoiled lights, chapel window to east 3, lights,
all with traceried 2-centred heads and head-stopped
hoodmoulds. Buttress to west of chapel has gabled niche
housing figure of St George carved in the round.
West end: triple-gabled. West doorway has boarded double doors
in 2-centred arch of two orders with filleted columns and
foliate capitals, and head-stopped hoodmould above. West
window of 3 lights, aisle windows of 2 lights, all trefoiled
and all with hoodmoulds on head stops. Nave gable end has
sexfoiled light beneath hoodmould, aisles trefoil lights in
triangular surrounds. All window tracery is Geometrical;
openings are chamfered and quoined. Chancel, bellcote, porch
and nave and aisle west ends have gable crosses.
At west end, square section gate piers with pyramidal caps
approximately 2.25m. high flank gates approximately 1.75m.
high. Gates incorporate bands of concentric circles, scrolls,
and pierced rails. Railings of same design, approximately
.75m., high on low stone wall. Gate and railings on south side
have spear tips, and gates hang from posts with tapered
octagonal finials.
RECTORY: George Street front: 2 storeys on chamfered basement
plinth: 2 gabled bays, left bay with attic. Entrance in left
return, to Peel Street. Ground and first floor windows are of
3 mullioned and transomed lights, those on ground floor with
2-centred heads; attic window is of 2 mullioned lights with
casements. Moulded first floor band continued on Peel Street
front, and moulded gable coping. Peel Street front: basement
and 3 storeys; 2 bays with irregular fenestration: lower
3-storey wing to left. Square-headed doorcase in wing, with
sunk-panel door in 4-centred arch and spandrels carved with
shields of the cross of St George set in foliage. To left,
paired 1-pane sashes with stone sill and flat brick arch. Main
front has full-height stack in right bay, and 2-light windows
in left bay: paired 1-pane sashes on ground floor, mullioned
and transomed on first floor, and single casement beneath the
eaves. All window surrounds are square-headed and quoined and
chamfered: mullions are chamfered.
INTERIOR: OF CHURCH: 4-centred double chamfered chancel arch
with head-stopped hoodmould, on clustered columns with moulded
capitals and bases. North and south arcades of 2-centred
double chamfered arches on octagonal piers with moulded
capitals and bases. Lady Chapel screen of 3 gabled bays of
paired trefoiled lights with traceried heads, between foliate
colonnettes: centre opening flanked by winged angel corbels.
Gables are crocketed, centre one surmounted by pedestal
housing canopied image of the Virgin and Child, the outer ones
by crocketed finials.
Octagonal font on square pedestal with panels carved in high
relief and cover of clustered volutes. Reconstructed altars
incorporating communion rail marble in Sanctuary and pulpit
marble in Lady Chapel: marble given by Irish dealers from the
cattle market formerly held in the Fishergate area.
Glass: east window by Hardman possibly designed by Augustus Welby
Northmore Pugin:
Lady Chapel by Barnett and Sons. Roofs: nave and aisle roofs
are scissor-braced and chancel ceiling coffered and painted.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: cast-iron gates and railings.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the medieval church of St George at
Beanhills, suppressed in 1547, formerly stood in the surviving
graveyard on the west side of George Street. The present
church of St George was used as temporary Pro-Cathedral of the
Catholic Diocese of Beverley until replaced in 1864 by the
church of St Wilfrid in Lop Lane, now Duncombe Place (qv).
(Bartholomew City Guides: Hutchinson J and Palliser DM: York:
Edinburgh: 1980-: 195; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N:
Yorkshire: York and the East Riding: Harmondsworth: 1972-:
119; City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 20).
Listing NGR: SE6078651410
