Church Of St Giles

The Church of St Giles is a parish church with origins in the 12th century, significantly altered in the 14th, 15th, and 19th centuries, and with additions of 1895 by J M Brooks. The church is constructed of massive ashlar sandstone for the tower, coursed coal measures sandstone for the nave, more evenly coursed sandstone for the chancel, and magnesian limestone for the 1895 additions. The nave roof is covered in concrete tiles, while elsewhere Welsh slates are used.

The church comprises a two-stage perpendicular (Perp) tower, a nave, a nave south porch, a north aisle, a chancel, and a vestry. The tower rises from a moulded plinth with a moulded stringcourse, featuring diagonal buttresses to the corners of the west wall. The bell stage contains pointed arched, two-light Perp windows with restored tracery, set below a simple hoodmould. A stringcourse incorporates grotesque spouts and the tower is topped with an embattled parapet with 19th-century crocketed finials. A stair tower is set into the south-west corner, with an eliptically arched head to the doorway and lighting slits to each stage. The west window is a three-light design with simple Y-tracery and cusping, appearing older than the tower's perpendicular date.

The gabled south porch has a simple arched opening framing a 12th-century doorway with a single order of colonnettes, foliated capitals, and a semi-circular arch decorated with double chevron patterns. A segmental arch with chamfers and plank double doors are within the decorated arch. A stone sundial sits atop the gable apex, alongside cusped lancet windows and stone benches inside the porch.

The four-bay nave has two three-light, restored Perp windows with pointed heads and hoodmoulds. Evidence of an earlier clerestory is visible beneath the plain rendered parapet, which has 19th-century moulded coping. The mid-19th-century chancel rises from an elaborately moulded plinth, with a cross finial to the leaded coping. A single lancet window is set into the south wall with a hoodmould and foliage stops, while a moulded stringcourse runs below the window cills.

The vestry, added in 1895 and linked to the chancel, has moulded copings to the gables and a small octagonal chimney to the side wall, featuring perpendicular-style windows of three and four lights. A contemporary north aisle has a plain chamfered plinth, three bays, and continuous stringcourses linking window heads and cills. It contains three four-light, Perp-style windows with ogee headed lights set between stilted segmental arches, with stepped buttresses beneath the windows.

The interior is largely 19th-century, but the chancel south window contains a recently restored 15th-century stained glass window depicting the Virgin and Child. The chancel east window is a design by Warrington, dating from 1845.