Heritage Church
Roger Harvey celebrates this landmark church, finding it to be one of the finest in the North
Roger Harvey on St George’s Church, Jesmond
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, walking through Newcastle on theatre business, was astonished to discover a magnificent church with a separate campanile in the Venetian style, and wrote a letter describing his delighted surprise at finding such a gem in a Northern industrial city.
It was, of course, St George’s in Osborne Road, Jesmond: impressively designed, lavishly decorated, outstanding when built and long treasured as one of the North’s most beautiful churches.
St George’s is also “my” church. I lived in Jesmond for more than forty years, was christened there and, like my wife, also confirmed there. In that year of my confirmation I was taken to St George’s for my first Christmas Eve Midnight Mass (very impressive in the warmly glowing church, but I was amused to note that some members of the congregation were fuelled less by religious fervour than by a more liquid Christmas spirit!).
Later, on a darkening Christmas Day walk in the early 1970s, I saw for the first time a golden light hung in the bell-tower, and felt that the forces of goodness and hope were well celebrated. More recent Christmases have seen St George’s deservedly and spectacularly floodlit, and my wife and I often visit the church.
The famous tower has become a landmark in my own life as much as an intriguing feature of the city skyline; a symbol of home as elegant and potent as the Tyne Bridge.
In a sense, the Tyne itself flowed through the creation of this remarkable building. In 1880, when Jesmond had already become a prosperous and desirable suburb of Newcastle, it was decided an additional church was needed to serve the Northern part of the district. Victorian shipbuilding magnate Charles Mitchell – an enterprising Scot whose shipyards at Walker on the Tyne had made his fortune – offered to fund the best design, the highest-quality materials and the most lavish decoration his enormous wealth could provide.
The new church would be only a short walk from Mitchell’s splendid home at Jesmond Towers and it is easy to imagine that he wanted the very best on his doorstep. He got it by engaging keen young architect Thomas Spence (who had already worked for Mitchell on Jesmond Towers) and by spending more than £30,000, a very large sum then. He left a sublime celebration of good design and craftsmanship to be enjoyed by future generations.
The foundation stone was laid by Mitchell himself in 1887, the work was executed quickly and the church consecrated in October 1888. Mitchell also paid for a superb organ and a peal of bells.
The original designs provided for a large vicarage and church hall which were built on either side of the church itself. The attractive hall continues to function, but the vicarage suffered from damp and was demolished in the 1960s to make way for a new vicarage in the modern style.
St George’s is now a Grade I listed building and underwent restorations in 2011 and 2013 resulting in a fully cleaned and more brightly lit interior. Designed in strong Early English style, the church embodies all the best ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement, integrating expensive materials with imaginative design and high-quality workmanship.
The building is large and bold, over 150 feet long with spacious nave and chancel, North and South aisles, baptistry, side chapel, organ loft and vestries. The dramatically steep roof is of Lakeland slate. Of course, it is
the awesome bell-tower that impresses every visitor. It is 254 feet high, and was inspired by the campanile of St Mark in Venice. The present cross was added in the 1960s after the original cross had rusted.
The flowing wrought ironwork of the porch gates gives a flavour of the Art Nouveau period that was to follow. The designer Alfred Shirley did all the metalwork for the church including the bronze statue of St George which stands on the west wall of the baptistry.
The west window shows a striking Last Judgement. From here onwards, the senses of the visitor are stimulated by the spacious interior and its lavish decoration inspired by the churches of Ravenna. The chancel is truly magnificent – the best local artists contributed – and the elaborate and brilliantly coloured mosaic has ambitious and compelling figures of the Apostles designed by Mitchell’s son Charles William, a successful painter (his vast canvas Hypatia, a sensational triumph in its day, is in the Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery).
The celebrated Ralph Hedley carved the massive oak pulpit. The floor features Christian symbols including mosaics of fishes and the olive branch. The huge altar was carved from a single block of Pavanozza marble and the glorious East window shows a richly coloured Nativity and the Visitation of the Kings and the Shepherds.
The pews are each built from a single length of the very best oak available to a major shipbuilder and have remained smooth and solid well into their second century.
A close inspection of the windows of the South aisle reveals the curious symbols of a Clog Calendar. These were used in medieval times to show the dates of feast days to people who were unable to read. Today they seem obscure and difficult to interpret but they clearly appealed to designers of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Stepping back outside, we have a spacious lawn and mature trees between the original Church Hall and the new vicarage fronting busy and cosmopolitan Osborne Road. This much-cherished space, spread with brilliant crocus in spring and dotted with fallen conkers in autumn, has for many years been the venue for a summer fête. It would be difficult to find a finer or happier aspect at any city church.