Description

SZ 09 SW POOLE WORGRET ROAD, Oakdale

958/5/10018 Church of St George

II

Church. 1959-60, designed by Potter and Hare. Red brick with low pitched roofs to eaves, covered in copper sheets. Precast concrete window dressings. Cruciform plan, each arm tapering towards the extremity. Short transepts. Altar in original position in the crossing. Western gallery with organ. Hall church with aisles and piers reaching up to the ceiling. Projecting south porch. Western tower with canted faces to west. Solid brick walls to tower, except for two strip windows rising all the way up on eastern face. Recessed windows at the top, below deeply oversailing parabolic concrete wafer-thin tower roof. Body of the church with tall, vertical mullioned and transomed windows in moulded stone surrounds. The three two-light windows to north and south aisles are canted outwards. Five-light south transept window and seven-light eastern window, the latter convex in plan. Roofs break forward to a point above transepts and east end.
Interior is light and spacious, with tall slender polygonal piers rising to a facetted vault clad in varnished timber boarding. The piers are of green, burnished granolithic and have flared capitals and bases. There is a strip window at high level in the walls which cants in and out, other windows with small leaded rectangular panes of reamy glass. Marble floor to sanctuary, raised by a step. Central altar in crossing raised on a further step. Simple timber and metal altar rail. Lady chapel to east end with further altar. Timber pulpit to north-west of sanctuary with flared sides and curved front with decorative vertical slats. Font of stone, an inverted bell shape with a burnished steel cover surmounted by a cross. It is positioned in the well of the curved staircase to the west choir gallery. Staircase has delicate timber and metal balustrade. West gallery houses organ, centrally placed, in timber organ case with split angled roofs pointing upwards to the outside. Gallery balustrade with fluted, painted front, topped by a chunky timber bookrest, separated by a horizontal gap from the panelling below. Graceful pendant light fittings of black painted curved metal rods. The scheme was initiated by the Mothers' Union, hence Potter designed a larger Lady Chapel within the single space.
A beautifully detailed and crafted church which shows the influence of J Ninian Comper and the Liturgical Movement in its centrally placed freestanding altar, and which in its details reveals the architects' experience in the repair of historic buildings.

Listing NGR: SZ0250693199

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St George's Church at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26657145

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)