Church Of St Giles

Church of St Giles, Matlock

A medieval parish church retaining its late Perpendicular west tower, with a chancel rebuilt in 1859, nave rebuilt in 1871, and south aisle with chapel added in 1897. The church is built of local gritstone laid in regular courses with hammer-dressed finish (except the tower), with freestone dressings and slate roof.

The building comprises an aisled nave with west tower, south porch, lower chancel with south chapel and north vestry. The tower is three storeys high, with diagonal buttresses, embattled parapet and corner pinnacles. Its west face features a continuous-moulded doorway beneath a restored three-light Perpendicular window. The second stage carries clocks in the north and south faces, with two-light louvred belfry openings. Against the south wall of the tower stands the façade of an earlier porch, dated 1636 on the parapet above a round-headed doorway with continuous moulding.

The nave has a clerestorey with pairs of two-light plate-tracery windows. The south aisle is under a separate roof with embattled parapet and pinnacles rising from buttresses, extending for three and a half bays. It includes a porch in the first bay, with a one-light window to its left and two-light windows to the right. The porch entrance has continuous filleted roll moulding and a south door with continuous moulding; a date tablet above this door is obscured by the porch roof. The south (Lady) chapel at the east end is gabled to suggest a transept, with a three-light window below a niche figure of St Giles and two single-light windows in the east wall with quatrefoil and trefoil tracery. The north aisle has a three-light west window, two two-light north windows and a three-light east window brought forward under a gable. The chancel has a three-light east window and two two-light south windows. The north vestry is dated 1907 in raised numerals over its north doorway.

Internally, the tower arch has polygonal responds (now largely obscured by the organ), probably dating to the 14th century. The nave arcades of 1871 have octagonal piers with stilted segmental arches; at the east end of each aisle is a similar transverse two-bay arcade leading to the vestry and Lady chapel. The nave roof features crossed arched braces with subsidiary crossed braces; the aisles have crossed-brace roofs, except the south aisle which has a simpler arched-brace roof. The chancel arch is double-chamfered on corbels. The arches to the chapel and vestry differ: the south side has a continuous chamfer whilst the north side chamfer dies into the imposts. The chancel retains a north aumbry, probably a medieval survival from before the 1859 rebuilding. It has an open polygonal roof. The tower stair turret retains an original ribbed door with strap hinges. Beneath the tower arch is a head boss from a medieval roof. Walls are of exposed masonry except for plastered sanctuary walls. The floor is stone-paved except for raised floorboards below pews and marble tiles in the chancel.

The octagonal font is a tall tub-shaped piece of late 12th or early 13th-century date, with ribs and a lobe frieze below the rim. It has an unusual octagonal base decorated with carvings including a heart and another figure, though badly weathered; it may not originally have been made as a font base. Deal benches with inverted Y-shaped ends have been removed from the aisles. The polygonal wooden pulpit was made by Advent Hunstone of Tideswell in 1913, carved in high relief with a scene of Jesus calling upon the disciples and figures of Saints Paul and John, with elaborate steps. Clergy and choir stalls were also made by Hunstone to designs by W.N. Statham in 1908. Priests' stalls are canopied with frontals carved with St Giles and the Good Shepherd. Choir stalls have tracery-decorated ends with figures on arm rests in Suffolk style; the rear tier has arm rests to each stall.

The principal memorial is an incised alabaster slab to Anthony Woolley (died 1578), made by the Royleys of Burton-upon-Trent. Originally a floor ledger, it was raised onto a chest in 1907. Several other memorials exist from the 19th and 20th centuries, including a Gothic tablet to Captain W. Cumming, killed in the Peninsula War in 1813. Benefaction boards and a board recording the erection of a gallery in 1724 date from the 17th and 18th centuries. The east window by Lawrence Lee (1969) is a semi-abstract representation of the Incarnation in rich, grainy colours. The south transept east window includes 14th-century German glass in the tracery lights; fragments of 15th-century glass, said to have come from Llanberis, appear in the south aisle tracery. Late 19th and early 20th-century windows are by Baillie & Co, Clayton & Bell, Heaton Butler & Bayne, Kempe & Tower and James Powell & Sons.

The church stands with a timber-framed lych gate by Advent Hunstone (1908), a sundial (LBS no 429239), and a churchyard wall with gate piers (LBS no 429240).

The medieval church of old Matlock, it retains its Perpendicular west tower but is otherwise 19th-century in its present form. The chancel was rebuilt in 1859 (dated on the building) by G.H. Stokes (1827–74), architect of London. The nave was rebuilt in 1871 by Benjamin Wilson (flourished 1858–71), architect of Derby. The south aisle was rebuilt and enlarged with a porch and chapel added in 1897 by P.H. Currey (1864–1942), architect of Derby.