St George’s Garrison Church
St George’s Garrison Church
St George’s Garrison Church is a ruined church in Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, South East London. It was built in 1862-63 as a Church of England place of worship for the Woolwich Royal Artillery Garrison. The church was hit by a V-1 flying bomb in 1944 and largely destroyed by fire. The restored ruin with its canopied roof, its blue, red and yellow brick walls, its mosaics and a memorial garden is open to the public on Sundays.
In 2011 ownership of the site was transferred to the Heritage of London Trust Operations (HOLTOP). Shortly afterwards the Heritage Fund awarded a grant of £400,000 towards the total cost of £800,000 for much needed conservation work, including the building of a larger canopy roof over the east end of the church. Since 2016 the church has been run by a local group, the Woolwich Garrison Church Trust. In 2019, we acted as structural engineers for the second phase of conservation work to secure outstanding areas of the fragile fabric- largely the decorative fittings and features in the east end. This began with the restoration of the pulpit and reinstatement of alabaster panels in the apse, which have been kept in storage. Largely funded by Historic England, this work involved cleaning, replacing defective bricks and re-pointing with stone work cleaned and restored throughout and the capitals which were on the top of the columns have been remounted on small columns and stone plinths. The project presented numerous conservation problems, not least the clearing of the apse crypt, which had been backfilled with rubble (and pieces of archaeological material) during the 1970’s when the upper sections of the apse walls were taken down.
We worked as structural engineers with HOLTOP who led the work on behalf of the Woolwich Garrison Church Trust, working in partnership with Historic England, together with ecclesiastical and conservation architects Thomas Ford & Partners, Purcell, Greenwoods and Skillingtons Workshop.
Client: Woolwich Garrison Church Trust
Photos: Courtesy of Kleon3 via Wikipedia Commons