St. George the Martyr, Wash Common, Newbury

Wash Common is thought to have taken its name from the 'Gewaesc' or 'Wasshe' a swampy area of forest on the Hampshire-Berkshire border along the River Enborne. The forest was valued for its oak from medieval times and provided timber for Winchester College and New College Oxford as well as for local uses (Newbury's wooden bridge over the Kennet and the roof of Sandleford Priory).

The southern slopes of the common were home to prehistoric people, whose ceremonial barrows can still be seen in the recreation ground at Battery End. In later feudal times, the area became an open common for the people of Newbury. It remained an expanse of heathland, used mostly by the drovers and by local residents for grazing and turf-cutting, until the enclosures of the mid-nineteenth century. Following enclosure development gathered pace, peaking in the 1960s and 1970s.

A small mission room and infant school was built by St John's parish in 1876 and this was licensed for services in 1878. The growth of the area led to St George's becoming a Conventional District in 1958 and a Parish in 1963.

The Church
St George's is one of only two churches in England designed by FC Eden FSA FRIBA, an authority on Italian art and architecture, the other is St John's in Harpenden. The Italianate style, tall, light and airy, was also thought more suitable (and less costly) to the heavy clay subsoil of the common than the traditional Gothic that had also been considered. The design is based on the early Renaissance pilgrimage chapels found by the Italian Lakes in the foothills of the Alps. The first part of the church was opened in 1933 but took a further 31 years to complete! A new hall and annexe were added in the late 1990s.

The rood beam has figures carved in Italy by Alphonse Nofleur. The baldachino, based on drawings by Eden, is the work of Sir Stephen Dykes-Bower, architect and surveyor of Westminster Abbey and the designer of the rebuilt St John's Church in Newbury. The memorial chapel of St Michael also has a reredos designed by Sir Stephen. The other major artistic contributions to St George's are by John Hayward: the superb circular stained glass west window in reds and golds shows St George; the Lady Chapel reredos depicts the Annunciation; the St Michael Window; the font, pulpit, lectern and priests' stalls; and the Processional Cross and Churchwardens' staves.

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St George the Martyr, Wash Common