St George's Church is a former church in High Street,

Macclesfield Macclesfield () is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It is sited on the River Bollin and the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east; the town lies south of Ma ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

St George's was built originally as an independent church in 1822–23. In 1834 a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

was added; by this time it had come under the care of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. During the 20th century it was declared redundant, and has since been converted into offices. When in use as a church, it could seat 1,000 people & frequently did at Sunday evening concerts featuring local choirs..Guest artists sometimes appeared including. Kathleen Ferrier in 1947 just before she became world famous.

Architecture

The former church is constructed in brick with stone dressings and is roofed in Welsh

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

. It has a rectangular plan of seven by three bays, and is externally expressed as two storeys. Its architectural style is Neoclassical. At the entrance front is a projecting stone

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

consisting of a plain

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

carried on four Tuscan columns, above which is a Venetian window in a stone

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

. The portico leads to a pair of doors, each with a radial

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window (transom window), often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing (window), glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open Hand fan, fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, ...

, and between them is a 16-pane

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

. At the summit of the entrance front is a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

. The bays at the front and sides of the church are separated by brick

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s that curve at their tops to form arched recesses. In each recess is a round-headed window in the upper tier, and a flat-headed window in the lower tier, all of them being sash windows with 30 panes. At the rear is a second Venetian window with a plaque flanked by

lunette A lunette (French ''lunette'', 'little moon') is a crescent- or half-moon–shaped or semi-circular architectural space or feature, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be ...

s above it. Despite the interior having been converted into offices, the gallery has been retained. It is U-shaped, and carried on fluted iron piers.

References

External links

Includes photographs of Macclesfield chapels, including St George's
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macclesfield, St George's Church Former Church of England church buildings Former churches in Cheshire Grade II listed churches in Cheshire Church of England church buildings in Cheshire Neoclassical architecture in Cheshire Neoclassical church buildings in England

History

Architecture

See also

References

External links