St. George

Introduction

Saint George's Church in Taunton, in the Diocese of Clifton, is a Roman Catholic church built in 1858-60 by Benjamin Bucknall in an early 14th-century style, with a tower added in 1875. The church is listed at Grade II*.

History

The Taunton mission was established in the 1780s by a priest named George Baldwin. In 1821-23 a small classical Catholic chapel, now the Masonic Hall and listed Grade II*, was built in The Crescent and dedicated to St George. The architect was Benjamin Bucknall and the builder was John Spiller of Taunton. The completed church was opened by the Bishop of Plymouth on 24 April 1860.

It was consecrated on St George's Day 1912. In 1969 the roof of the church was re-covered with asbestos slates, the stonework repointed, and worn tower pinnacles were replaced in artificial stone. The following year the interior was reordered and refurbished by Shirley-Smith & Gibson. In 1991 the current parish centre, to the southwest, replaced a parish hall of 1933.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is constructed of Monkton stone rubble with dressings of Bath stone under roofs covered in late 20th-century asbestos slates with stone-coped gables. The tower faces onto Billet Street and has four stages and corner buttresses. The east window of about 1860 depicts the Virgin Mary and St George flanked by Saints Dunstan, Joseph, Walburga and Boniface. A stained glass window in the north aisle is a memorial to the Fallen of the Second World War.

The west window, depicting Christ in Glory, is by Patrick Reyntiens and was installed in 2009 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the church. In the narthex is a First World War memorial in the form of a wall-mounted timber Calvary. The church is orientated north-west to south-east, aligning with Billet Street, and comprises a tower, clerestoried nave with aisles, sanctuary with side chapels, and a sacristy to the south-west corner. The large pointed west doorway has three orders of shafts and is set within a moulded, flat-arched surround with cinquefoil carvings to the spandrels.

The second stage of the tower has a window of five lights with cusped heads, rising to flowing tracery, and the upper stages have long ogee-arched bell-openings that are pierced and traceried and divided by a transom. The tower has an openwork parapet with corner pinnacles. The aisles are of six bays, divided by buttresses, and each bay has a two-light window. Towards the west end of the south aisle is a deeply-chamfered, pointed-arched doorway.

The east end has a large six-light, traceried window and an inset carved stone trefoil above. The flanking chapels are articulated by buttresses and each has a three-light east window with a stone trefoil in the gable apex. The sacristy has a lower roof-line and a flat-arched window of four lights with cusped, ogee-arched heads. Late 20th-century glazed and timber screens form a narthex to the lower floor of the tower, above which is a large west organ gallery that has a canted wooden gallery front.

The aisles have lean-to roofs with arch-braced trusses. The north chapel has the relocated carved octagonal stone font, a Gothic reredos of five empty niches, and an altar frontal depicting the Death of St Joseph. The Lady Chapel has a Gothic reredos with statues of the Virgin Mary and female saints, as well as reliefs depicting the Adoration and the Visitation. The original high altar was separated from the reredos in c1969 and brought forward, and at the same time it was given a new mensa of polished Ashburton marble.

The reredos has eight statues in gabled niches on either side of the tabernacle and is attributed to CF Hansom. The reredos is flanked by matching wall arcades with larger statues of saints. To the side walls of the sanctuary are two pointed arches; the east arch on each side has a stone screen divided into three ogee-arched pierced panels with marble shafts and surmounted by carved angels with gilded wings. Full-height stone shafts rise from the floor to support the roof, with angel corbels to their lower parts.

At the east end of the north aisle is a window of Saints Philip and James signed by William Morris & Co. Within each spandrel of the arcade is a carved stone corbel of a head from which a shaft rises to a corbel of an angel playing a musical instrument.

Parish life

The parish has adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at regular times, with a team of adorers. Volunteer teams clean the church weekly on a rota basis. Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion bring communion to the sick and housebound of the parish. At St George's, flower arrangements are usually done on a Thursday, except during Advent and Lent, and the team decorates the church for Christmas and Easter.

A team of volunteers visits patients in hospital and brings them communion. There is a small library in the entrance foyer of the Taunton Catholic Centre where books can be borrowed. A team of readers proclaims the Word of God at Mass and other services. A team of welcomers greets people as they arrive at and leave the church.

The parish has groups supporting the most vulnerable in society and fundraising for charities. The parish offers sacraments and preparation to receive them. The parish offers opportunities for individual prayer, prayer groups, spiritual direction and formation in prayer. There are two war memorials at St George's commemorating parishioners who died in the First and Second World War.

Regular events

All of the parishes have a bookshop run by volunteers selling books, statues, cards and other religious items, open after Sunday Masses. Tea and coffee are available after both the Sunday Masses at St George's in the Taunton Catholic Centre.