York Historic Environment Record

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 AWN 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