Church of St Giles

Church of St Giles, Barrow

This is a rural church of very significant early medieval importance, primarily developed between the 8th and 11th centuries, with later alterations and rebuilding in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The church retains extensive surviving Anglo-Saxon and early Norman fabric.

The building is constructed of stone rubble with freestone dressings and tiled roofs. The chancel dates to the possibly 8th-century Anglo-Saxon period. The nave is either early Norman or late Anglo-Saxon. The west tower is early Norman in origin with a 19th or 20th-century upper stage; it is unbuttressed, rises in three stages, and has a low pyramidal roof with a belfry stage constructed in brick laid in English garden wall bond. The north transept is said to be medieval in origin but was documented as rebuilt in 1688 and heavily restored in the 19th century. A classical south porch was added in 1705.

Exterior features include an Anglo-Saxon chancel window on the north side, set high with a double splay, with evidence of a hacked-back pilaster strip nearby. A rectangular chamfered frame window stands to its right. On the south side of the chancel is a 12th-century round-headed doorway that cuts into an earlier window. The nave has opposed high-set small early Norman windows, deeply splayed on the inside, with a second similar window on the north side, along with two-light square-headed windows with cusped lights. The west tower has a round-headed west doorway with a hoodmould and plain imposts, and small round-headed windows on the south side, one of which is unglazed. The north transept has a 19th-century plate-traceried north window. The porch is constructed of brick with rusticated freestone quoins. It features a round-headed outer doorway with keyblock and keyed oculi in the north and south sides, with keystones carrying the date 1705. An illegible inscription panel in the gable is flanked by scroll brackets. The south doorway to the nave has plain imposts and a massive lintel beneath a blind round-headed arch. A pillar piscina stands outside the south porch.

Interior features include a very plain, low, round-headed chancel arch with plain responds and a square-section hoodmould. Squints on either side have 19th-century trefoil-headed frames. The tower arch, formerly the west door of the nave, is tall and narrow with a large flat lintel within a blind round-headed arch. The west face of the tower arch displays a tympanum with three tiers of geometrically patterned carving and a recessed square-section moulding above. The chancel has a 19th-century common rafter roof with straight braces on each couple, boarded behind, and the wallplate is carved with nailhead decoration. The nave has a substantial 19th-century arch-braced tie-beam roof with two tiers of purlins and a brattished wallplate. The arch into the north transept is of 19th-century date. The walls are unplastered.

Fittings include a plain tub font, probably 12th-century, on a cylindrical stem; a timber drum pulpit with traceried panels; choir stalls with round-finial ends; and nave benches with convex shouldered ends. Numerous wall monuments date from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. A timber poor box of approximately 1690 stands on a 19th or 20th-century stem.