St George's Church, Everton

St George’s Church stands on Everton Hill in Liverpool, a Grade I listed building and the earliest of three churches in the city designed by John Cragg. The church occupies the site of the former Everton Beacon, destroyed by a storm in 1803, and was commissioned by Liverpool merchant James Atherton. An Act of Parliament in 1813 authorised its construction, and the foundation stone was laid the same year. The architect was Thomas Rickman, and the church was completed and consecrated within eighteen months. The church’s exterior is built of stone, while the interior is entirely cast iron, a rare feature for the time. Its Perpendicular Gothic style includes a west tower with a clock on three faces, a seven-bay nave with aisles, and a short chancel. The tower has diagonal buttresses and an embattled parapet with pinnacles. Inside, cast iron arcades support the nave, and the aisles contain galleries beneath a cast iron roof. Tie rods were added in the 20th century to reinforce the structure. Inside, only one stained glass window survives from before the Second World War, a work by A. Gibbs dated 1863. The east window dates from 1952 and was made by Shrigley and Hunt. Memorials include one to John Rackham designed by Thomas Rickman, a relief of the Good Samaritan by William Spence, and a Gothic tabernacle by Emanuel Edward Geflowski. The original bell frame was made by Ainsworth of Warrington and restored in 1937 before being vandalised in the late 1960s.