Church Of St Giles

Church of St Giles

Parish church at Sandiacre, with a building history spanning the 11th to 15th centuries. The chancel was erected around 1342 when Bishop Norbury of Lichfield held the prebend of Sandiacre. The church was substantially restored in 1855 and again in 1866.

The building comprises a nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. The exterior is constructed of coursed rubble with quoins to the nave and lower tower, coursed squared stone to the clerestory, and ashlar elsewhere. Roofs are steeply pitched slate with moulded stone coped gables topped by ridge crosses on the chancel. The nave and tower have a chamfered plinth, whilst the chancel has a deep moulded plinth with continuous moulded sill bands and hoodmoulds. The chancel displays a deep frieze of blind quatrefoils with a band of fleurons below at eaves level, and low parapets with moulded copings.

The west tower is striking in proportion, with a very tall first stage featuring clasping buttresses to the western corners reaching about halfway up, and a narrower short second stage above. The first stage has central chamfered 13th-century lancets to each side with short buttresses below. Above these are double lancet louvred bell openings set in chamfered pointed surrounds. A 13th-century broached stone spire rises above, decorated with two sets of cusped ogee-headed lucarnes to four sides.

The north nave elevation has a central 12th-century semicircular-headed window with a roll-moulded arch and nook shafts plus outer billet moulding, which has been considerably lengthened at some stage. Above is a 15th-century clerestory with three irregularly placed two-light flat-headed windows with cusped lobed lights in deeply recessed surrounds.

The chancel to the east is magnificent and almost the size of the nave. Its north side displays three tall pointed three-light windows with flowing tracery, each with finely carved head label stops and delicately moulded surrounds. Between the windows and at the east end are stepped gableted buttresses topped with elaborately crocketed pinnacles, also featuring cusped blind panelling to the upper parts. Two sadly mutilated gargoyles are set in the frieze. The east end has similar buttresses either side of a six-light window with a central major mullion combining intersecting and flowing tracery, with delicately carved label stops to the hoodmould. Each corner of the chancel has a crocketed pinnacle similar to those on the buttresses. The south elevation of the chancel is similar to the north except the window tracery is more stylised, and there is a small contemporary pointed doorcase below the western window with thin nookshafts with carved capitals and carved heads to the hoodmould.

The south nave elevation has a pointed four-light 13th-century intersecting tracery window with elongated quatrefoils to the top and carved label stops to the hoodmould to the east, and a similar 12th-century window to the centre. Beyond to the west is the 1855 neo-Norman porch with a semicircular-headed doorcase of similar design to the windows, with inner roll mould, nook shafts and outer billet mould. The porch sides have small roll-moulded windows and a plain corbel table. Above is the 15th-century clerestory with three similar windows to those on the north side. The inner doorcase is late 12th-century with a double roll-moulded arch with three nook shafts to the sides featuring a mixture of scalloped and volute capitals.

The interior has no arcades but features a fine late 12th-century chancel arch with moulded hood and double roll-moulded arch on nook shafts with scalloped and volute capitals and an elaborately carved impost band. The southern capital has a strange carved figure of a man with volutes used as his eyes. Above the arch is a single triangular-headed opening. The west end of the nave has a low double-chamfered tower arch over which a circa 1980 organ gallery has been erected. Both 12th-century nave windows have internal roll-moulded arches and nook shafts with scalloped capitals. Chancel windows are moulded internally with continuous sill bands and hoodmoulds with carved head stops. The southern door is similarly decorated. All roofs are 19th-century; the nave roof is very plain but the chancel roof is a pointed timber barrel vault with a frieze of pierced quatrefoils to the base. The 11th-century roof corbels remain visible in the nave below the clerestory.

The south side of the chancel contains a triple sedilla with attached piscina of similar date to the rest of the chancel. The three seats and bowl each have a steeply pitched crocketed gabled over with crocketed pinnacles between the ogee rib vaults below. The front of each gable has blind tracery and is topped by an ornate foliage finial. The choir stalls, pulpit and nave stalls are all of oak and early 20th-century. The font is 14th-century with a moulded octagonal base and waisted stem supporting an octagonal bowl carved with foliage designs and crenellations to the top; the font cover is 20th-century. To the north side of the chancel is an alms cupboard with a sculptured brass door. The reredos dates to around 1947 and is of painted oak with carved figures.

The chancel also contains several memorials including a 13th-century gravestone with a raised cross and four stone slabs to members of the Charlton family dated circa 1631, 1644, 1687 and 1681, the latter with a brass plaque with incised achievement. There is a slate war memorial and two slate and white marble wall memorials, one circa 1817 to Benjamin Harrington and one circa 1853 to the Foxcroft family. Below the chancel arch is an alabaster slab memorial laid by Wilughby Manley to all his children. To the north side of the pulpit is a small brass plaque in a scroll-topped niche to Joseph Chadbourne who died in 1722, and above is another slate and marble early 19th-century wall memorial.

At the west end of the nave is an enamelled brass plaque commemorating the donation of the bells in 1881. The east window of the chancel has stained glass of circa 1885, and the west tower window has glass of similar date. Both 12th-century windows in the nave also contain stained glass; that to the south dates to circa 1936 and that to the north to 1956 by M Farrar Bell.