Church &
Churchyard
THE CHURCH BUILDING
Then...
Built and fitted out between 1714 and 1729, St George-in-the-East was one of fifty new churches planned for London (though only twelve were completed) - the background to the scheme is explained HERE. Christopher Wren (Upon the Building of National Churches) stressed their Protestant, and auditory, function - unlike the European baroque churches of the time designed for the 'distant murmuring of the Mass' - which he said meant a maximum of 2,000 seats, including galleries; and they should be cheap.
But St George-in-the-East (designed to
seat 1,230) was not cheap - it cost £18,557 3s 3d. There were many
delays - partly, it
was
claimed by contractors, because disorderly people stole bricks
and other materials, 'especially on Sundays'.
It
is arguably the most original of the six London churches designed by
the idiosyncratic
architect Nicholas Hawksmoor.
Little is known of his personal life: he was born in 1661 (or maybe
earlier) and died in 1736, possibly in East Drayton, Notts. This bust
is the only surviving image of him - it sits on a lowly shelf in the
buttery of All Souls' College Oxford (which he designed). He was
self-educated, working as Wren's domestic clerk (rather a talented clerk,
said Sir John Betjeman) from the age of 18, and he never travelled
abroad - so his vast knowledge of classical architecture all came from
books and drawings, and his converse with Wren. His six churches are, in order (each is
comprehensively documented elsewhere):
Hawksmoor probably had a hand in the 1732 obelisk spire of St Luke Old Street; and certainly, in a very different style, in the gothic west front of Westminster Abbey. Outside London, he worked with Vanburgh on a number of large secular projects.
As former Rector Gillean Craig points out, it is instructive to compare St George's with the two other East End churches which were built simultaneously, Spitalfields and Limehouse: all share similar dimensions, all are heroic in scale and detail, all have great west towers, all bear the tension between central and axial plans, all are (or in our case were) built above huge vaulted crypts suspiciously well lighted for mere burial vaults.
Hawksmoor has been 'rediscovered' in recent years, both as a major architect and also as the subject of myth. (One of the pupils in Alan Bennett's The History Boys is questioned about his life and work.) In the 1960s, the architectural critic Ian Nairn wrote that St George-in-the-East represented the more than real world of the drug addict's dream. Hawksmoor figured in the speculative writings of Iain Sinclair, whose poem 'Nicholas Hawksmoor: His Churches' in Lud Heat (1975) links his churches to theistic satanism. Peter Ackroyd developed this line in a 1975 'magic realism' novel Hawksmoor (later made into a film) where the architect becomes a fictional devil-worshipper, Nicholas Dyer, and 'Hawksmoor' a 20th century detective investigating a series of murders in his churches. And Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's novel From Hell speculates that Jack the Ripper used Hawksmoor churches for ritual magic and human sacrifice (they had corresponded with Sinclair).
These may be good
stories, but to
portray his churches as centres of gloom and mystery, full of occult
and morbid
energies and pagan symbols, linked to ancient lay lines and
contemporary local murders, is untrue: silly nonsense as art critic
Waldemar Januszczak described it in his 2009 BBC Four series Baroque! Hawksmoor
was indeed a restless spirit,
drawing inspiration from diverse sources – Roman, Greek,
Egyptian,
Gothic – for which he faced rejection from his less-able
contemporaries. It was certainly an unusual choice to top St George's
Anglican tower with six circular Roman sacrificial altars [picture] - which the
architectural historian Dr Julian Litten mischievously suggests would
make a fine crematorium chimney! - but this is eclectic rather than
subversive. His churches are fantastical and monumental essays in
stone, but not
in coded satanism. In fact he was seeking to recover a pure and
primitive
style of architecture for the national, established church –
which
he believed (wrongly, as we now know) stemmed from the Jewish
temple.
Authoritative assessments of Hawksmoor's work are to be found in John Newenham Summerson’s classic Georgian London (first ed. 1945, current ed. Yale University Press 2003) - he was one-time Curator of the Sir John Soames' Museum in Lincolns Inn Fields, and wrote of their gloomy grandeur that approaches the monstrous - and Kerry Downes' Hawksmoor (Thames & Hudson 1970), who speaks of the ability of Hawksmoor's churches to fascinate the eye and disturb the memory. Architectural historian Professor Vaughan Hart introduced new material about Hawksmoor in his award-winning Nicholas Hawksmoor: Rebuilding Ancient Wonders (Yale UP 2002). More speculatively, Pierre de la Ruffinière du Prey, in Hawksmoor's London Churches (Chicago University Press 2000) suggests that, in contrast to his city and West End churches, for the East End he developed a kind of 'architectural cockney', powerful and direct, just like the common Greek of the gospels.
To quote Gillean
Craig again: St
George's has a uniquely complex skyline. As well as the western tower
there are four 'pepperpot' turrets, each large enough to form the tower
of an ordinary church. These had some practical excuse: each marks the
position of a spiral staircase that orignally led to the great
galleries [they now lead to the church flats; the elaborate
detailing around their narrow entrance doors is extraordinary]. There were no less than nine
doorways into the church [the four
flights of steps that
now lead down to the crypt level originally led up into the church,
through doors where now there are windows]
.... with separate entrances for the different classes according to
their ability to pay for better or worse seats. Nowadays the
façades, which reward extended study in their massing and
detail, appear perverse and wilful, but originally they signalled the
original interior disposition of the worship space with great clarity -
a spatial exercise of great boldness and clarity.
We
believe that St George's, with these distinctive pepperpot turrets,
presents a friendly face to the Highway, Docklands Light Railway and
the local
community. Pepper give spice and zest to life, and shaking it
about
is a good symbol of our task as the church. Using a similar metaphor,
the Bishop of London has called us ‘St
George-in-the-Yeast’!
Externally,
the major change to Hawksmoor's vision was the entrance steps, which
date from around 1800. Previously, as the drawing on the left and the
plan below show, the circular
walls of the rotunda hid paired steps to north and south. The pilasters
that now butt up against the steps (whose slope came later!) were
originally conceived, in a typical Hawksmoor conceit, to be
read as the bases
of the great pilasters of the tower beyond. HERE are
some drawings from 1915. A wooden model of the church, pictured HERE, is on
permanent loan to the RIBA.
...and now
In May 1941 St George's was severely damaged by an incendiary bomb during the Blitz, leaving only the outer walls, vestry, Lady Chapel, the 160’ tower and all the turrets. All the interior was burnt, except for the still visible fire-shattered fragments of the capitals of pilasters on the east and west walls. Legend has it that one pair of cherubic heads in the apse plasterwork survived the Blitz - the rest is a faithful replica of the original.
So
the church
shared in the suffering of the
people of London, honoured to bear its scars to the present day. Though
it would have been a tragic mistake to allow it to become a controlled
ruin,
as some suggested!
For a time, worship was
conducted in the Rectory and Mission Hall, and then for seventeen years
in a prefab within the shell, known as St George-in-the-Ruins - see the
HISTORY page for
details.
What
you see now is a paradox: within the proud Hawksmoor shell is a
modest worship space, designed by Arthur Bailey and reconsecrated in
1964. It is approached from an open courtyard where the nave once
was – a good space for various activities. From there you
enter a
light, airy and prayerful space, focused on elements of the surviving
semi-circular apse, with a full-height glazed window, good for looking
both inwards and outwards. It is eminently 'fit for purpose', and many
people find it an oasis of tranquility. We find it sad that some
visitors, guidebook in hand, ascend the steps into the courtyard and
twenty seconds later turn on their heels and depart: they are blocking
out something significant, historically and theologically.
Some (most recently Colin Amery, in a Royal Academy of Arts lecture in October 2009) continue to argue that the 1960s work was merely a temporary expedient, and that re-creation of a complete Hawksmoor interior should be attempted. It was not, and such an exercise could only be a speculative fantasy producing an unsustainable building of limited usefulness, either for worship or community purposes, and failing to honour the complex ongoing history of the church. Others, such as Dr Julian Litten mentioned above (who was a member of the working party considering the future of the church in the 1980s), recognise that the 1960s intervention has its own integrity, and forms part of the undervalued story of post-war church building - though that is not to rule out future adaptation of the church and ancillary rooms, as has already happened with the crypt.
As
a landmark, it is more visible now than when it was surrounded to the
west and south by other buildings which were levelled by the Blitz (see
below for a plan to reverse this).
Du Prey comments, somewhat fancifully, that although
it always rose above its low-lying
surroundings like a tall white lily growing among weeds, its gleaming
Portland limestone now dominates the area as never before.
Less flatteringly, a journalist recently likened it to a
battered old boxer! And
the architectural critic Mervyn Blatch said ungraciously, in the 1970s,
we can again stare in
wonder or dismay at this strange building. Compare this with
the comments from Sir John Betjeman and Bishop Trevor Huddleston, in
the same period, HERE.
The
Rectory on two floors, and three flats were created in the former
gallery space, accessed by the spiral
staircases under each tower. With the old rectory variously tenanted,
the site (said one review of the time) became almost like a small
village - which was the then-Rector Alex Solomon's intention.
Ironically, in some ways this echoed Hawksmoor's notion of a 'primitive
Christian settlement' - some of his sketches for the site had shown
other buildings on each corner, to match the original parsonage house,
though these were never built.
Project 0001 of
the London
Docklands Development Corporation
was the cleaning of the church in 1982 - prompted, it is said, by a
visit to the area by Michael Heseltine who singled it out for
attention. The LDDC was set up by the Conservative
government to
regenerate the area by private/public partnerships. It took credit for
creating 2.3m square metres of new floor space, the DLR, the Jubilee
Line extension, Canary Wharf, one of the tallest buildings in Europe,
30,000 new houses, the relocation of many companies into the area
and
an increase of jobs from 27,000 to 80,000 when it was dissolved in
1998. However, its legacy for local people remains open to question -
how many of the new jobs, for instance, were genuinely local? The
emphasis now is on social inclusion and neighbourhood regeneration: we
are part of LAP4 (one of Tower Hamlet's Local Area Partnerships), and
the Rector is a member of its steering group.
In
a 1987 report Blashfield & Peto produced plans for
're-enclosing' the church and gardens with housing on the south and
west sides (along The Highway and Cannon Street Road), proposing that
the London Residuary Body - which owned this land following the demise
of the Greater London Council - should sell the land to them, or
give it to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for them to develop. The
parish resisted this notion, and in the end LBTH left the land open,
and has since incorporated it into the Gardens scheme.
INSIDE THE CHURCH
Then...
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Some believe that the inspiration for Hawksmoor's interior [left, as remodelled in the 19th century] came from the church of St Matthias, Poplar [right], one of the few churches built during the Commonwealth, by the East India Company in 1653-4, and later much-rebuilt (it is now a community centre). HERE are some detailed images of the original interior - the pulpit, the porch, the ceiling, the organ, the warden's pew, and the 'panelled room'. It is the only one of his six churches with a vaulted ceiling. The woodwork was heavy and dark, and probably not of the same quality as in his other churches.
In 1820 a new vault was created and the churchyard drained. In 1829 the church was re-roofed, at a cost of £8,000, for which a building grant was obtained. During the work, a licence was granted for services to be held in the Schoolroom of St George's National School in Charles Street, Wapping. The parish population at the time was given as 32,528.
In 1839 a stained glass window of Faith, Hope and Charity, from designs by Sir Joshua Reynolds (copying New College, Oxford) was added above the altar painting Christ in the Garden by Clarkson; other stained glass windows in the apse had been added a few years earlier.
Here is a ticket for a 'COLD COLLATION' to celebrate a futher restoration in 1871 (which removed the box pews and created additional seating), and a site plan for 1870.
In 1880 Venetian glass mosaics were installed in the apse, depicting five passion and resurrection scenes - see HERE for pictures and further details, including a comment by Bryan King. The mosaics were saved in the Blitz and restored.
Further renovations took place in 1886, paid for by the Rector C.H. Turner in memory of his uncle Henry Charleswood. The altar was enlarged in 1905.
...and now
As explained
above, all
that now remains of that INTERIOR
is the apse, redecorated to the
original designs; the two stone corbels, on either side of the east
wall; and the mosaics,
rescued
from the ruins and restored.
Until recently the walls were painted
in a
stone colour, and the lampshades were black metal cylinders with small
vertical slits, in post-Festival of Britain style [pictured].
The font
[left] is
similar in style and age (the bowl is recarved) to the one brought
from the
demolished
City church of St Benet, Gracechurch in 1877 by the Rector Harry Jones,
and stood in the north
aisle near the pulpit, in addition to the original font in the
north-west baptistery, on account of
the great number of baptisms here according to A.E. Daniell London Riverside
Churches (Constable 1897) - a strange claim, since they
would hardly have been used simultaneously!) By it
stands a paschal candlestick carved by FR GROSER's
son Michael, with seven panels depicting passion and resurrection
symbols. Over the font hangs an unusual metal corona [right],
in aluminium and copper plumbing materials, designed in 1966 by Frank
Berry and made by Arthur Greenwood of the Brotherhood of Prayer and
Action who were working in the parish at that time. It holds twelve
candles, which are lit at Christmas and other festivals.
In
the south-east corner is a small plaque
[left] commemorating Fr Alex
Solomon, Rector 1958-79, who inspired and led the REBUILDING.
On St George's Day 1991, a week after the 50th anniversary of the
destruction of the church interior, his widow presented a lavabo bowl
(used by the priest for the ritual rinsing of his hands before the
eucharistic prayer) [right] designed
for the church and made by Tom Tudor-Pole,
whose workshop was in Spitalfields. It bears the inscription I will wash my hands in innocency, Oh [sic] Lord, and so will I go to thine altar (Ps
26.6) and on the inside Remember
Alexander Solomon, Priest around
the martyr cross of St George-in-the-East, based on four Roman swords -
as on the plaque.
Pierced wave forms are added around the lips of the bowl. It is unusual
- but very appropriate - to have such a commissioned piece, of which he
would surely have approved.
On
one of the pillars on the south side [right] is a little
abstract watercolour
by
Peter Bedford, who as a member of the Pacifist Service Units was on
fire watch at
the top of the tower the
night the bomb fell. He became an architect, and took up painting as a
retirement hobby. It was only when he and his wife visited the church
in 1997 that he realised, in conversation with the Rector, that the
Blitz had provided the subconscious inspiration for a series of
abstract paintaings he had recently completed, of which this is one. It
bears the inscription How beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings of
peace (Isaiah 52.7) and Remember
before God the horror and destruction of war / Pray and work for peace
and reconciliation in our world, together with a memorial
plaque to the artist who died in 1998.
Opposite, on the north side [left],
is an icon of Christ the Merciful by Dom
Anselm Shobrook OSB, commissioned in 1997, with the text Come to me, you who labour and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
On the north wall is the organ, an
extension instrument of 1964 by N.P.
Mander.
(The original
instrument of 1733, of 25 speaking stops on three manuals by Robert
Bridge, had been rebuilt between 1881-86 by
Gray and Davison, but nothing of this instrument survived the Blitz.)
It is accessed for tuning and maintenance via one of the flats! HERE
is the temporary instrument that preceded it.
The silver altar candlesticks and processional cross and wooden alms plate were designed for the church. Like the lavabo bowl and memorial plaque mentioned above, the cross and alms plate have the martyr cross motif.
The communion
silver
is a mixture of 20th century pieces and items from former churches in
the parish: the silver gilt set from Christ Church Watney Street
used at festivals, and items from St Paul Dock Street. None of the
historic plate of the parish church survives. Two George II flagons,
and a pair of 18th century patens and chalices, together with some
Stafford plate used at St Matthew Pell Street, were sold in the
1920s, via an
anonymous donor, for display in the London Museum. See this FACULTY
CORRESPONDENCE
which shows how disposing of the 'family silver' was
dealt with in those days. More recently, a 1930s chalice and paten, and
a boxed communion set (originally for use on a ship?) were given
to the Diocese of Namibia in 1994, and at the suggestion of the Bishop
of London, a Victorian chalice and paten to the Diocese of
Nigeria-Bauchi in 1998.
The sacrament is
reserved (for taking holy communion to the sick and housebound) in a
hanging pyx
in the apse, behind the altar, installed in 1969 in memory of Charles
Turner (Bishop of Islington). It is covered
with a white veil and marked with a permanent white (energy-efficient!)
light - deliberately brighter than is traditionally used, to provide a
visible sign at night from The Highway and Gardens of Christ's presence
in his church. Hanging pyxes were in vogue at
that time; ours is manually rather than electrically raised and lowered
- unlike those in smarter West End churches. (Harry Williams CR
recalled in his autobiography his first vicar's remark that in this church even the good Lord lives in
a lift.)
At the doors, and on the bishop's chair (1969, given in memory of Albert Barratt, and sadly vandalised a few years ago) are cast bronzes - and replacements in fibreglass - of St George and the dragon [pictured].
THE TOWER
In
the rebuilding, the tower was stablised (note the fire damage marks,
and the concrete cross on which the flagpole sits - it can be lowered
down for painting).
See HERE for details and pictures of the bells: a light ring of eight, cast in 1965 as a demonstration ring for bomb-damaged churches by the Whitechapel Foundry - an ancient, famous and very local firm. They had also restored the old bells in 1938 in memory of Charles John Beresford (Rector 1925-36), which were destroyed in the Blitz.
Above the bells is a room [pictured right],
the original purpose of which is unclear (apart from its windows
serving an architectural function). It is too high up the tower to
be accessed by any but the most energetic!
THE CRYPT
Then...
The
crypt, originally accessed from the south-west corner of the church,
had been extensively used for burials, in a series of separate vaults.
As
explained on the REBUILDING
page, after the Blitz the decision was made
to clear and remodel the crypt. Between 11 October and 9 November 1960,
686 boxes and lead coffins, from 59 vaults, were
removed and reburied at Brookwood Cemetery - see HERE
for the detailed record. The crypt then became a hall, with an
exceptionally large
stage - which was used as rehearsal space for several West End
productions and major orchestras, as well as for parish functions (a
few of them pictured HERE).
The Royal Shakespeare Company rehearsed here for a time; Peggy Ashcroft
allegedly said Why can't we
always rehearse here - the acoustic is
marvellous. In 1966 Leo
Aylen, who lived and worshipped here for a while, wrote two
plays for performance in
churches by
professional actors together with local young people: George, and The Adoration of the Magi. George was
premiered here, with Timothy West leading the cast in the opening run.
Terry Coleman of The Guardian commented It was all very well presented, and after
last night no one can say that the devil has all the good
theatres.
...and now
Use of the hall, by outside groups and the parish, declined, and in 2005 it was decided by the diocese of London to convert the eastern (stage) end into an administrative base for the North Thames Ministerial Training Course - as part of the Bishop of London's vision of a 'Christian university' along The Highway. This base is now also used for teaching, on Tuesday evenings; in 2007 it became part of the College of St Mellitus, serving the whole of London and Chelmsford dioceses. Then, in 2006, the parish adapted the rest of the crypt as a nursery school (fincanced by the sale to the diocese of Church House, Wellclose Square), and it now houses Green Gables Montessori Nursery School.CHURCHYARD & GARDENS
On the north of the church lies the enclosed Churchwardens' Garden, which is used for play by the children of the school. It is entered through the Bryan King gate, which was re-created in 2008. It is through this gate, at the time of the RITUALISM RIOTS of 1859-60, that the Rector escaped from the mob in church, back to....
....the Rectory, whose front door still has metal reinforcements and an iron bar! It is the original parsonage house; full details of its history, and recent restoration, are shown HERE.
To the
east of
the church lies St
George's Gardens,
comprising the former churchyard and various other plots of land. Some
of the old headstones are now relocated against the walls.
The original area, consecrated in 1729, was extended on the north
exactly a century later. HERE is a
description of an 1824 funeral procession to a family vault near the
west door.
Like other urban churchyards, it had became, in the words of Mrs Basil Holmes in London Burial Grounds (1896), a gorged London graveyard...[to which] the close courts and poverty-stricken streets of the parish sent every year many hundred tenants. Burials ceased after the 1852 Metropolitan Burial Act which created a system of public cemeteries; Bryan King conducted the last regular interments here (eight in number) on 1 October 1854. The churchyard was then closed to public access for the next twenty years. In April 1859 the Privy Council, making directions for various churches, ordered that within the church at St George's the accessible public vaults should be freely limewashed, coffins in the public vault covered in earth and concrete, under the direction of the Medical Officer of Health, and that McDougall's powder, chlorine or other disinfectant be used wherever required. After the closure, five further interments took place, by licence from the Home Secretary.
It then became effectively the first London churchyard to become a public park in the care of the local authority (two others had been partially cleared), opened in January 1877, four years before the Metropolitan Open Spaces Act 1881 (extending a more limited Act of 1877) simplified the process. Harry Jones, Rector at the time, was very determined in pursuing his vision for an oasis of green space in the crowded city. The necessary legal judgement is reported in Re Rector &c of St George-in-the-East (1876) 1 PD 311.
The east end of the churchyard, and the whole of the WESLEYAN CHAPEL burial ground behind the Town Hall (which the Vestry purchased in 1876), formed the original garden. The remainder of the churchyard was cleared in 1886, and the whole was put in order and laid out at the sole expense of AUGUSTUS GEORGE CROWDER JP. Mrs Holmes described it as always bright and neat and full of people enjoying the seats, the grass, the flowers and the air, and noted that the project was unique in being an amalgamation of a churchyard and a dissenting burial ground.
HERE are more details about the Gardens: a 1901 article about Harry Jones' achievement; a 1907 letter from the Diocesan Chancellor confirming that this was a 'first'; a 1935 article from the Morning Post; and a plan of current land ownership of the site.
In
the 1980s the land along The Highway was added to the Gardens, and
Library Place was incorporated in 2002. (The Passmore
Edwards Public Library was opened in 1898, adjacent to the
Town Hall, and destroyed in the Blitz in 1941.) In 2008 the Gardens
re-opened after a £1.5m Heritage Lottery Fund restoration and
conservation project, and it is good to see them being enjoyed once
more. Sadly,
the project did not include the small brick-built building of c1870,
once the mortuary
chapel, which in 1902 became a NATURE
STUDY CENTRE - this link explains the latest developments in plans
for its restoration.
At the east of the church is the War Memorial of 1924 - see HERE for an account of its planning and dedication, and a list of the names it commemorates - and (enclosed by railings) the Raine Memorial [pictured] - find out more HERE about Henry Raine's schools and his curious provision of a marriage portion for local girls.
On the wall of the town hall, at the north of the gardens, is a mural depicting the BATTLE OF CABLE STREET in 1936.
St
George’s School, north of the church [marked on some maps as
'NAthaniel Heckford School'], was
where E.R.
Braithwaite, the Guyanan author of To
Sir with Love
taught during the pioneering headship of Alex Bloom (1945-55) - you can
read about them both, and Bloom's innovations, here.
The current building dates from 1898, and is on the site of a former
sugar refinery. In recent years it has housed
various local schools during
their rebuilding. The school
is currently being converted into flats.
In 1980 the church
exterior and adjacent
buildings featured in the gangster film The
Long Good Friday,
starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren, in which Harold Shand's Rolls
Royce is blown up while his mother attends a service.
See here for details of the St George-in-the-East Conservation Area.
