Church Of St Giles

The Church of St Giles is a parish church with origins in the mid-12th century. It comprises a nave from the mid-12th century, a 13th-century chancel, 14th-century north and south transepts, and a south porch built around 1404. The church was extensively restored and a north porch was added in 1863 by Messrs. Hay of Liverpool. It is constructed of coursed and partly-rendered sandstone rubble, with graduated green slate roofs.

The nave is aisleless and has fragments of a low plinth. It features flat buttresses at the west end, a large three-light west window under a pointed hoodmould, and a west bellcote with twin pointed openings. A steeply-pitched roof with coped gables and shaped footstones tops the nave. The chancel is lower and narrower, with a 19th-century priest’s door on the south side and a late 15th-century Perpendicular three-light east window with panel tracery and a depressed-pointed head under a hollow-chamfered hoodmould. A steeply-pitched roof covers the chancel.

The gabled south porch has a moulded pointed-arched doorway under a hoodmould featuring an eastern head stop, with a worn crucifixion relief in the gable. A gabled north porch has a pointed-arched doorway. Mid-12th century doorways, within each porch, have chamfered round arches, with a datestone (AN:DO:) above the north door. The transepts are gabled and each has two lancet windows from 1694. The north transept gable contains two sculpted stones.

The interior is plastered and painted. The north transept has a double-chamfered arch dying into the wall and a pointed-arched piscina with a fluted drain. The chancel has a similar arch resting on moulded semicircular mid-wall corbels; a pointed-arched piscina in the south chancel wall has a foliated cross-slab head set into the rear wall, and a round rear-arch marks the blocked priest’s door in the north chancel wall.

The church contains an inscribed Roman dedication stone in the north transept, a large grave slab with a sword and hound to the west of the north door, and several other medieval grave slab fragments. Two fonts flank the north door. One font has a 12th-century circular bowl with an incised zig-zag on a 13th-century stem with four engaged shafts; this stem likely belonged to the other font, which has a 13th-century circular bowl with three bands of leafwork, now mounted upon a re-cut fragment of a Roman altar. A small, possibly 17th-century circular bowl, with a small relief of a human figure and raised geometric decoration, is located to the east of the north door. A plaque dated 1878 on the south nave wall records a sum of money raised by the friends of Thomas Headlam to augment the living of Bowes.