Church Of St Giles

CHURCH OF ST GILES

This parish church was designed by S Pountney Smith and built around 1861. It is constructed of coursed dressed sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, topped with plain tiled roofs with gable-end cross finials. The building is styled in the Early English manner.

The church comprises a north-west tower, a five-bay nave with a three-bay north aisle, north and south porches, a two-bay chancel with a north organ chamber.

The north-west tower rises in two stages, sitting on a chamfered plinth and reinforced by clasping buttresses with offsets. The lower stage features a round-headed west doorway with a hoodmould. Above it is a pointed opening pierced with three circular windows, also with a hoodmould and head stops. A lancet rises above this opening, with another lancet on the east side. The north side carries a 2-light window beneath a rectangular light. The belfry stage sits above a tiled offset and corbel table, and displays 2-light louvred bell-chamber openings with dog-tooth moulded heads, set within single pointed archways with hoodmoulds, imposts and nookshafts. The broach spire rises above with an enriched corbel table at its base, three tiers of lucarnes (the upper two tiers each linked by continuous hoodmould), a finial and a weathervane. The north-west buttress houses the tower stairs, accessed through a narrow chamfered west doorway, with two slit windows in the north and west elevations.

The nave sits on a continuous chamfered plinth. The north aisle has a dog-tooth eaves cornice and a catslide roof, with a lancet and two 2-light windows featuring a grotesque head corbel at the junction of the arched heads. The west end of the nave displays clasping buttresses with offsets, two lancets with nookshafts and hoodmoulds, a smaller lancet in the gable apex, and between them a large circular window with dog-tooth mouldings and hoodmould. An enriched corbel table sits beneath the eaves on the south elevation, continuing around the chancel.

The gabled north porch at the eastern end has a quatrefoil window at its gable end and an east doorway with nookshafts and hoodmould. The south elevation of the nave carries four pairs of lancets with foliated reliefs enriching the arched heads, all set beneath relieving arches. The south porch has a lean-to roof from which projects a gabled, timber-framed additional porch with overhanging bracketed eaves, a chamfered pointed archway, and four glazed cusped lancets on each side. Within the inner porch is a pointed doorway with half-glazed double doors, flanking glazed cusped lancets and a glazed surround, with lancets in each side elevation. The inner porch leads to the south doorway, which is pointed and of three orders—the central one shafted with dog-tooth mouldings on the capitals—and carries a hoodmould.

The chancel features clasping east end buttresses with offsets and two narrow gabled buttresses flanking the central lancet of the east window, interrupting an otherwise continuous sill string. Three lancets at the east end have a stepped continuous hoodmould, with a small lancet in the gable apex. Lancets appear at the eastern end of both side elevations. The south-west bay projects slightly and carries a group of three lancets. The north organ chamber has a catslide roof (partly continued from the north aisle roof), three north lancets and a large east lancet with a hoodmould. A large chimney with gabled offsets rises at the junction of the organ-chamber and chancel roofs.

Inside, the nave arcade comprises three bays with quatrefoil columns. The chancel arch is similarly detailed. The nave and chancel have gilded timber rib vaults with gilded bosses and stone vaulting shafts on corbels. Dog-tooth mouldings and nookshaft detail are used extensively throughout the chancel, appearing on the east window, archways to the organ chamber, south-west recess and aumbry. A five-bay reredos features crocketted gabled niches containing figures. The circular stone font and four-sided arcaded stone pulpit are also decorated with dog-tooth detail. A parish chest in the vestry beneath the tower dates to circa 1650 and bears the initials "ML".