We are accustomed to seeing a white, almost ethereal St George’s with a silver spire soaring to the sky, but it did not always look like that. Those who are familiar with the interior of the building will know that it is designed with a half-timbering effect, and originally this was repeated on the outside of the structure as well. This ‘decoration’ was eventually removed because it was said to be too heavy for the walls to support. The photo above shows St George’s as those who lived at the end of the 19th and in the first decades of the 20th century would have seen it.
The first St George’s (a church, not a cathedral) was completed in 1811, and was replaced by a new building (this time a cathedral) in 1842. It was, according to the historian James Rodway, “a plain brick building, simple in its architectural features with a square tower.” Considering it was of brick, it might still have been with us were it not for the fact that it contained one fatal flaw. The builders (or perhaps the architect – if there was one – who might not have been familiar with local soil conditions) provided only a single foundation for both the main building as well as the tower. As a consequence the tower sank much faster than the rest of the structure, and according to Rodway, “broke its back.” He goes on to say that this became apparent soon after the cathedral was completed, and although various attempts were made to solve the problem involving considerable financial outlay, it was to no avail.
Erecting a new cathedral could be postponed no longer after the old one came to pose a danger, and in 1877, what was called a pro-cathedral was put up, pending the erection of a new building. This new building was the current St George’s, work on which began in 1889. It was dedicated in 1892, and opened for worship the following year.
At the time Rodway was writing, the exterior was still carrying its superstructure, which is
why, perhaps, he writes, “It is generally admitted that this [the cathedral] is ugly, and it is certainly not waterproof… and no doubt some means will shortly be found to make the external appearance a little more pleasing.” A means was found to make the external appearance infinitely “more pleasing,” although this does not seem to have been done with aesthetics primarily in mind.
