Church of St Giles

Church of St Giles, Haughton

The Church of St Giles is a parish church dating mainly from the late 15th to 16th centuries, constructed of ashlar local red sandstone with tile roofs. It was much altered before undergoing comprehensive restoration in 1887 by the renowned Gothic Revival architect John Loughborough Pearson.

The building comprises a nave with narrower chancel, a west tower, south porch, north chapel, and south vestry with organ chamber.

The exterior is dominated by a striking Perpendicular three-stage tower with diagonal buttresses and a frieze of cusped saltire crosses below an embattled parapet with pinnacles—a characteristic feature of Staffordshire towers. The three-light west window has a hood mould with head stops. The second stage contains narrow openings and an early 19th-century painted clock face on the south side. The belfry has two-light openings with louvres.

The nave displays Tudor-Gothic styling. The north wall was refaced in 1887 and contains restored 16th-century one-light and two-light windows. The west wall houses a window that was blocked when the tower was constructed. The south wall dates entirely from 1887 and features three three-light square-headed windows. A buttressed south porch has an entrance with a double-chamfered arch on polygonal responds.

The shallow-projecting north chapel is Tudor Gothic with two square-headed three-light windows whose lights are cusped. The chancel is Early English in style with buttresses bearing attached slender shafts. The east end has three stepped lancets with linked hoods and ringed shafts to subsidiary blind arches, while two lancets appear on the south side and one on the north. A gabled vestry features a three-light geometrical south window and external stack.

Internally, the tower arch is 14th-century with polygonal responds. The wide Early English chancel arch is 19th-century work. The roofs date from 1887: the eight-bay arched-brace nave roof and similar four-bay chancel roof both include windbraces. The two-bay north chapel arcade also dates from 1887 and is Early English in style with a central pier of four clustered shafts and foliage capital. Sedilia on the south side of the chancel function as window seats.

The walls are exposed stonework. In the north wall is a blocked straight-headed doorway. Shallow niches in the north wall relate to a wall painting of Saint George and the Dragon discovered in 1887; these niches may originally have held lit tapers representing fire from the dragon's mouth. The floors are tiled, with decorative tiles in the chancel by Godwin of Lugwardine copied from medieval examples, and parquet floors beneath the pews.

The slender Gothic font with octagonal bowl was remodelled in 1899 but is probably 18th-century in origin. Benches have square ends with two fielded panels. Choir stalls feature poppy heads and arm rests. The Caen stone pulpit is embellished with polished Irish red marble shafts and blind tracery. The reredos, designed by Pearson and made by Nathaniel Hitch in 1896, is Caen stone with relief panels depicting the life of Christ, flanked by three niches containing figures of martyrs designed by W.D. Caröe and made by Nathaniel Hitch in 1910.

The principal memorial is an incised grave slab of Nicholas Gravinor (died 1520), now set on the east wall of the north chapel, showing a tonsured priest who initiated the church's rebuilding. The chapel's west wall bears an oval tablet to Randall Darwall (died 1777) and family.

Fragments of 16th-century stained glass survive in the chapel's north-west window. The majority of the stained glass dates from 1887 to 1920 and was created by A.J. Dix of London. In 1904 Dix embellished an earlier east window by Gibbs & Howard from 1887. The north chapel displays windows of Saints Columba, Chad and Augustine (1887). The nave contains two war-memorial windows by Dix (1920) depicting the last communion before battle and a Roman centurion with Joshua, leader of Israel. A further war-memorial window by H. Doyle (1946) shows RAF pilot Flying Officer Clement Royds (died 1945) being carried to heaven from his burning fighter.

The church shows evidence of a 12th or 13th-century structure in the nave's west wall, and the tower arch indicates a tower was added in the 14th century. The present tower, north chapel, and windows on the north side of the nave survive from a rebuilding programme initiated by Nicholas Gravinor, rector from 1489 to 1520. The remainder of the church had been rebuilt in the 18th century with early 19th-century additions but was taken down and replaced during Pearson's 1887 restoration. Pearson retained the Tudor-Gothic style for the nave while choosing Early English style for the chancel and vestry.