Church Of St Giles

Church of St Giles

Parish church. The building dates from 1833 and 1886, occupying the site of a medieval church probably founded in the 12th century. It is constructed of red sandstone ashlar with slate roofs.

The structure consists of a nave and chancel in one, with a west tower built in 1833. A north chapel, vestry and south porch were added by F. Francis in 1886. The tower has set-back buttresses and possibly retains some medieval masonry in its base. The original west doorway is blocked, with a Tudor arched window inserted above it. The belfry is lit by three broad lancets with hoodmoulds. The top is embattled with pinnacles and carries a weathercock, with a clock on the south face. The nave is wide and buttressed, projecting to north and south of the tower, and has broad lancets under hoodmoulds to its west wall with cusped lights. An east window to the chancel on the south wall is blocked. The wide east wall has a three-light window with simple cusping and a datestone of 1833 above it.

The north chapel has crosses to its gables and a three-light east window with trefoiled heads and cusping. Above the west window is a three-light opening with geometrical tracery and the Capel Cure coat of arms. The chapel has a moulded eaves cornice on its north side. The adjoining vestry has a sloping roof and a double chamfered doorway under a hoodmould in its west wall, with a cusped lancet to the south. The south porch is timber-framed on sandstone walls, with a pointed arch to its entrance containing quatrefoils in the spandrels. The side walls have perpendicular tracery in their windows, with bargeboards and gargoyles. The south door, also of 1886, is in Decorated style.

Interior

There is no internal division between nave and chancel. A highly cusped Queen-post roof covers the whole space. A low round arch, recessed, leads to the tower, approached down steps. The sanctuary, raised one step, has communion rails with turned baluster shafts and a hinged gate, with a panelled reredos probably also of 1834. Stained glass in the east wall dates to 1834, with roundels in the heads of the lights above containing Netherlandish work of the 16th and 17th centuries.

The north chapel is separated from the body of the church by a 15th-century screen surviving from the medieval church. The screen has a crest decorated with Tudor flowers, intertwining leaves and grapes to its cornice, above open groining with square leaf bosses. Diminutive rounded battlements ornament the capitals on the arches supporting the upper part. The lower section is late 19th century, dating to 1886, with open tracery featuring trefoiled heads. The north chapel roof is wooden and panelled.

The font, of 1887, is a copy of that designed by Wren for St Bride's, Fleet Street. The pulpit and reading desk also date to the late 19th century. A list of benefactors to the church spanning 1752 to 1852 hangs over the south door. Two late 19th-century boards on the east wall display the Lord's Prayer on one and the Apostles' Creed and Ten Commandments on the other. The painting over the Communion Table is an Ecce Homo after Titian, and at the west end hangs a 19th-century copy of the Annunciation.

Monuments

In the north chapel, on the north wall, is a large seated figure in profile commemorating Isaac Hawkins Browne (died 1818), created by Chantrey. A stele-shaped monument by Flaxman also in the north chapel commemorates Browne's mother (died 1802), shown standing with a genius appearing in a cloud above, and also commemorates his wife, Henrietta. Harriet Pigot (died 1852) is remembered by a stele-shaped wall monument depicting an angel taking her up, created by John Gibson. On the north wall of the nave is a monument to Harriet Cheney (died 1848), also by Gibson, showing her seated with a standing angel holding her arm. A tablet to Elizabeth Kynnersley (died 1649) carries a contemporary wooden heraldic crest above it.