Church of St Michael and St George London, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

22/0/10206 WILCOX ROAD 29-MAR-10 CHURCH OF ST MICHAEL AND ST GEORGE

II Church 1913, by JS Adkins. In style it stands on the cusp between the Gothic Revival manner associated with the later C19, and the Perpendicular manner often favoured for suburban churches at the end of the C19 and early C20, and often influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement.

It is aligned roughly north-south between parallel streets, the entrance, on the liturgical west front, faces south-east onto Wilcox Road. References in this description are to its liturgical orientation.

MATERIALS: Stock brick with soft red brick, Staffordshire blue brick and Bath stone dressings, slate roofs.

PLAN: A continuous five-bay aisled nave and two-and-a-half bay chancel, a flèche marking the position of the chancel arch. Attached to the south aisle of the nave and chancel is a four-bay Lady Chapel and at right angles, single storey vestries. The west, entrance front is symmetrical, having a canted baptistery set forward from a shallow narthex, and flanked by gabled porches.

EXTERIOR: At both the west and east ends, red brick angle buttresses clasp square finials which are linked to the gable by an open arcade. The west window of the nave has flamboyant panel tracery in five lights in a flush red brick opening, with flanking flush red brick bands and beneath a continuous hood mould. The gable has flush stone kneelers, and a trio of narrow vents at the apex which is surmounted by a cross. The baptistery, which has two-light windows, breaks forward from a full width narthex, which has single-light windows, which is under a continuous pitched roof. To each side are gabled porches with an entrance under an arched opening and single or two-light windows on the return. Porches and baptistery also have gable crosses.

Three-light nave and clerestory windows have cusped tracery under rectangular pointed arches; the former between narrow buttresses, the latter windows recessed under wide four-centred arches. The east end is dominated by a monumental blind red brick arch suggestive of a window opening that was never realised. Like the west end, brickwork on the east end is of stock brick with red brick banding, while the blind arch is filled in plain stock brick, in the centre of which is a large flush, white brick cross., suggesting perhaps a change of design to accommodate the reredos, which, in January 1914 was promised but not fitted, or that work on the church was interrupted by the outbreak of war. Beneath it is a three-bay arcaded niche. In the south-east angle is a tall chimney stack. The east end of the Lady Chapel is similarly articulated, with a canopied niche set within a blind red brick arch set on a continuous flush stone band. The west end of the Lady Chapel has a large rose window with flamboyant tracery above a single two-light window and a porch with an entrance to the chapel and aisle; side windows are similar. The flèche over the main roof of the church has an open timber frame under a splayed roof. Single storey vestries have rectangular two-light windows.

INTERIOR: Nave arcades have clustered stone shafts with foliate capitals, on tall, rectangular brick bases, and support chamfered stone arches; a blind arcade picked out in red brick frames the clerestorey windows. Similar piers distinguish the narthex from the nave, but this element is blocked by a full height glazed screen and floor (which are not of special interest) which were inserted in the 1970s dividing the western two bays of the nave from the rest of the church. The Lady Chapel was also partitioned from the nave by glazed screens (again not of special interest) which fill the outer four- bay arcade of moulded stone piers which divides it from the nave.

The nave roof is of timber and is barrel vaulted, with enriched ribs, and kingposts strengthened with ornate iron brackets, and supported on wall