Church of St George

Details

SJ 40 NW
SJ 30 NE
4/206 and 3/206

PONTESBURY C.P.
MAIN ROAD (north side)
Church of St George


13.6.58

GV
II*

Parish church. Saxon origins, re-built except for the late C13 chancel, by John Turner in 1829, re-using some of the medieval stonework. Roughly coursed red sandstone rubble to chancel with a mixture of yellow and red coursed limestone to C19 work, the former colour predominating on south, ashlar porch; low-pitched slate roofs to nave and aisles and machine tiles to chancel. Nave, chancel, north and south aisles, south west tower and south porch.

Tower: four unequal stages with angle buttresses; broad lancets with hoodmoulds to first and second stages on south and roundel to third; tall louvred lancet openings to belfry with corbel table and parapet above, brass weathercock; plain narrow pointed west door.

Nave: lit by a clerestory of five lancets with hoodmoulds separated by shallow pilaster buttresses on north and south with a further blind bay to west on north side; two tiers of triple lancets with hoodmoulds in west wall; plain corbel table and parapet on north and south sides.

Aisles: five bays with four pairs of lancets similar to those in clerestory but linked by a continuous hoodmould, gabled buttresses; gabled ashlar porch in west bay on south.

Chancel: three bays on chamfered plinth with stepped buttresses between second and third bays from west; windows on north and south with plain Y-tracery and hoodmoulds (the central one on south at a higher level above the pointed priest's door); east window in a style of c.1300, intersecting tracery of five lights pierced by an elongated quatrefoil above, below the apex a small lancet opening; also in the east wall two stones with C12 chevron moulding presumably re-used from earlier church on site.

Interior: south doorway has wide pointed double doors with six carved quatrefoils (c.1830) on outside and original lock; tall broad arch at west end not to tower but to organ gallery; plain square panelled roof to nave in five bays with principals resting on stone corbels (c.1904), chancel roof of trussed rafter construction with scissor bracing and quatrefoil carving to cornice c.1300 (restored 1904); the chancel arch has been re-built (c.1830) but its broad tall, pointed form with bold quadrant mouldings is probably a copy of the original late C13 arch; C13 trefoil-arched piscina and in north wall an aumbry with shouldered arch and an oak door inscribed HP/WR/HH/1652. Five bay nave arcades have wide pointed arches supported by piers of quatrefoil section with fillets on tall octagonal bases much re-cut, the exceptions being the eastern responds and the first capitals from the east (red sandstone) which may be C14.

Fittings and furnishings: C12 plain round font has deep scalloping beneath the bowl and a moulded rim and base; wooden pulpit is of 1904; marble and mosaic reredos by G.E Street (c.1866); C17 oak panelling in chancel placed there c.1917 and further Jacobean panelling used in the screen below the organ gallery; six glazed medieval floor tiles set in a wooden frame on the south chancel wall; wooden screen across the chancel with its openwork tracery also in the style of G.E Street dates from 1904 as does the stained glass in east window, commemorating the reconstruction of the chancel at this time; there are two parish chests, one of early C17 at east end of south aisle and another at west end inscribed I B R P WAR 1700; an iron-bound chest with small painted panels (probably done in C19) dates from early C17 but is of continental origin.

Monuments: a good collection of C17 and C18 wall tablets and memorials. The best are to Thomas Davies (died 1674), a London merchant - a good mid C18 memorial with segmental pediment and two flanking standing figures above a carved sailing ship (north side, chancel); Richard Ward Offley (died 1762) (north side, chancel); Revd. Henry Baldwin (died 1737) (south side, chancel); also a small brass tablet on north wall of chancel to Owen Davis (died 1596); in the nave (east wall, south side) a memorial with folded drapery to William Boycott (died 1707).

A Saxon minster church, the parish of Pontesbury was formerly divided in three portions, an arrangement dating back until at least C13 and which persisted until 1909. The church stands in a roughly oval-shaped enclosure, a feature of early foundations.

Listing NGR: SJ3997306086

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

259510

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Cranage, DHS, An Architectural Account of the Churches of Shropshire, (1908), 533-35
Page, W, The Victoria History of the County of Shropshire, (1968), 283-90
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Shropshire, (1958), 230

End of official list entry

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