History | Interior History | Clergy
As already noted, the church is built in the Early English style of Gothic architecture. A description of the Church in the Parish Magazine of 1863 reads as follows; Picture of Church in 1894
During the period in which this style prevailed, 1200 - 1300AD, Salisbury Cathedral was commenced and finished and is therefore entirely in this style, as also was the nave of Westminster Abbey and parts of a dozen English cathedrals, besides a number of Abbeys and Parish Churches. In no existing remains of the buildings of the period in question is there found so perfect and intact an example of the style as is shown in our St George's Church, nor is it probable that there is in England at this day, a more perfect modern example of this most English style of architecture, more elegant, unique, and perfectly consistent in all its parts. Boldness, lightness and simplicity are the leading characteristics of the design. Externally, the blocks of plain masonry of which the walls are composed , are relieved more by the buttresses than by the few crockets, bosses, and finials, of which the ornamentation of the exterior mainly consists. And yet it would be difficult to point out one single spot , either in the interior or exterior of the building, where an additional ornament could be placed, without departing from the style and destroying the beauty and unity of the design.
The local stone of which the Church is built is coarse and gritty, and does not lend itself to fine, intricate carving. Clearly, Rickman has made the most of a difficult material. As Rev E M J Cornish, incumbent, remarked in the closing paragraph of his guide booklet The story of the Parish of St George (and on which this guide is in part based).
The buttresses generally terminate in acutely pointed pediments, like those in Salisbury Cathedral and Beverley Minster. The only places where arcades are used are on the octagonal columns under the pinnacles and on the walls around the chancel. During recent repairs to the tower crenellations and pinnacles it was discovered that the Picture of Church looking up St George's Street latter had dowels running down their vertical axes, to hold the masonry sections in place. The dowels, which created difficulties for the stonemasons involved in the repairs, consisted of an iron core within a sleeve of copper. Over the years, ingress of moisture had caused electrolytic action between the two metals, with the iron corroding preferentially to the copper and thereby expanding. This expansion had split the copper in places and led in turn to splitting of the stone sections, thus necessitating the repairs in which the dowels were replaced by solid rods of stainless steel. Similarly, blocks forming the crenellation were tied to the rest of the structure with stainless steel replacing the original iron rods. It is known that Rickman was fond of using xmodernx materials. Presumably, at that time little was known of the corrosive effects of two dissimilar metals in contact continue to serve in the same tradition.
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