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Netherfield
St George

Archaeology

St George’s Church Netherfield was completed in 1887. The architect was Ewan Christian who designed the building in the ‘Pointed Gothic’ style. The church is located on Victoria Road Netherfield, and is set with its south wall parallel to that road. The site originally covered one acre, and has over time accommodated the church, the vicarage with large gardens, tennis courts and croquet lawns and a church institute. Maps produced prior to the construction of the church designate the land as a field in the ownership of the Lord Carnarvon.

The building is predominantly constructed of red brick, with string courses of yellow limestone, possibly local Bulwell stone. The string courses are not set to correspond with particular architectural features or at regular intervals but vary from 10 to 16 courses spacing. The building rises from a blue brick plinth dampcourse just above ground creating the need for three steps at the south door to the internal floor level.

Generally the church comprises a rectangular nave with a lower extended north side, to form the Lady Chapel and a further smaller rectangular chancel again with extensions on the lower north wall to form the organ arch and vestries. From the west elevation the design is distinctly asymmetrical

The west wall has two tall lancet windows each set on a stone sill capped with a brick arch under a brick drip hood. Between the windows a brick buttress rises to the springing point of the window arches. In the gable over the buttress is a small brick niche with double ring brick arch. At the apex of the gable is what appears to be a truncated chimney stack capped with sandstone. There is no obvious evidence inside the church to suggest that it is the remains of a chimney, but the church did have coal stoves in its early days. The gable wall extends two brick courses over the roof line and is weatherproofed with a flat stone copings with chamfered edges. At the point where the north wall is extended outwards there is another brick buttress rising two thirds the height of the gable. The angle of the roof is also decreased at this point.

At the north elevation, the extent of the extended roof and vestries can be seen. Construction is continued in brick and slate, with the same stone string coursing, but with the lancet windows set in groups of three. The central windows being slightly taller rising into the gables set at 90 degrees to the building, and terminating with a roof-line level with the change in the angle of the main roof. Two groups of three equal height windows are set within the lower areas of the north wall. All the windows are framed with canted bricks on stone sills. Two doors on this elevation give access to the vestries. Although the walls are comparatively low they are supported by brick buttresses.

The east wall is much the same as the west in terms of construction. It is however somewhat lower in height over the chancel, and not so easily accessible, having only a narrow area of land between it and the rear terraced house in the next street. It has three windows, now partly boarded over and no longer visible from inside the church. These are best viewed from the adjacent rear yards. At the apex of the gable of the main wall over the chancel arch and extending some way over it there is a well proportioned ornate bell-cote constructed of brick, with a more generous use of stone than elsewhere in the building. It is buttressed on each side and capped with the same flat coping stones as the west wall. It houses a single bell, set on a wooden headstock for swing chiming. Rising from the top of the bell-cote there is a wrought iron cross serving also as a lightning conductor.

The south elevation is the easiest to view. The construction materials and style are common with the rest of the building. However, the windows in the wall illuminating the nave are single lancets set within corresponding brick arches as the east and west walls but they are well spaced pairs again between low buttresses, whilst windows in the chancel wall are again single they are set within stone frames in the long and short style. The door set into this wall is similarly framed.

At the north west corner of the church is the main entrance set within a brick porch. It has a wooden door painted black, with decorative iron work. The door frame is again set under a canted brick arch below a brick drip hood. Access for less mobile church users has recently been installed by the construction of concrete ramp with hand rail.

The roof is covered with Welsh slates, with roll top ridge tiles. All the roof flashings are of lead, including the join between the change of angle on the rear roof. There is also three lead formed roof valleys on the north facing roof.

Two square ventilator housings interrupt the ridge line of the roof. Spaced about one third from each end of the nave roof. They have rectangular bases at the point they come through the roof, rise on slightly smaller rectangles and terminate with a tapered flat tower. They are made of metal, possibly aluminium, and are the housings for the two Boyles Patented air pumps (design number 107) fitted in 1906 to extract fumes from the church. It is not known if the extractor mechanism is in situ. Along both the north and south walls large air bricks can be seen below most of the windows. They were also fitted in 1907 as part of the solution to the ventilation problem.

The west end of the church	Detail of the top of the west end	Exterior of the north aisle
The south chancel door (of different construction)	The bell-cote	The roof-line, showing the venting lanterns

Summary