St George Protector of England

Introduction

St George Protector of England in Whitchurch, within the Diocese of Shrewsbury, opened for worship on Whit Monday 1878, with the Very Rev. Canon Cholmondeley as preacher. The church is a simple Gothic school-chapel of 1878 designed by James O’Byrne.

History

The Roman Catholic congregation in Whitchurch began in 1855 under the Rev. Fathers McCarte and Kenny, meeting at a private house in Green End. In June 1876 James O’Byrne drew up a perspective view of the ‘Proposed New School and Presbytery, Whitchurch, Cheshire’. Sufficient funds were raised for building to start on 28 August 1877, but the building that opened on Whit Monday 1878 was only half of the proposal in O’Byrne’s June 1876 drawing.

Architecture and furnishings

The original narthex was lost in 1914 when the gallery was built. The church was first reordered in 1969, when the 1906 reredos was removed and the coeval altar brought forward. A pulpit of 1904, erected in memory of Fr Bolton, and the communion rails were removed at that time or possibly later, and the door opening between the sanctuary and the west passage was infilled. During a second re-ordering in 1985 panelling was installed in the sanctuary and the 1906 altar moved to its current position beneath the chancel arch.

The organ came from a Methodist chapel and was installed in the gallery in the early 1990s. The building is a plain brick-built, slate-roofed mid-Victorian school-chapel, although never used as a school. The street frontage has a central door with three lancets over and a bellcote. The interior is top-lit due to the constraints of the elongated plot.

The architect lit the interior with a long-glazed lantern on the ridge, envisaging the presbytery would abut the eastern flank. Inside, the lantern casts generous light on the dark stained trusses and purlins and whitewashed ceiling plaster and walls. The nave is accessed via the enclosed area beneath the organ gallery. The main space has timber pews on either side of a central alley.

The ritual east wall of the nave has three segmental headed openings, the larger central one giving on to the sanctuary, the narrower flanking doors leading to the confessional and sacristy. The sanctuary has been reordered at least twice and does not contain furnishings of historic interest. The church has good post-war stained glass in the sanctuary. The Stations of the Cross in the nave may be early or original. The sanctuary is lit by three high level lancets with stained glass windows by Patrick Pollen, given after World War II by the Crossley family.

Visiting

The font was moved from the back of the church to its current position near the chancel arch during one of the reorderings. The original intention that the church should also serve as a schoolroom was evidently never realised, but screens to divide the space remained well into the twentieth century.