Roman Catholic Church of St. Giles

Roman Catholic Church of St. Giles

A Roman Catholic Church built between 1841 and 1846 by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin for the Earl of Shrewsbury, located on the south side of Bank Street in Cheadle. Built in the High Decorated style using red Hollington sandstone ashlar with carved dressings. The roofs are of steep pitch with lead coverings and cast iron, fretted, crested ridges. Verge parapets feature corbelled kneelers and crested pinnacles at the apices.

The plan consists of a west tower and spire, nave, aisles, vestry, chapel and chancel. The layout is notably unconventional, virtually abandoning the traditional ritual axis in favour of capitalising on the compact urban site.

The tower and steeple form a square of four tall stages set on a triple drip-moulded plinth. Four-stage angle buttresses carry figures in niches to the west-facing bottom stages, with a string running around the first stage. The bell-chamber features paired, two-light, pointed openings set in deep reveals. A labelled, pointed three-light west window is set over the west door, with pointed moulding and low relief carving in the spandrels, deeply moulded reveals with a band of ball flower ornament. The double doors have appliqué brass rampant lions. The spire sits on a corbelled band and is octagonal with crocketed ridges. The lower section is rather elongated and has slim diagonal pinnacles clasped to its sides. Two-light lucarnes appear at the base with tiny single-light openings placed further up.

The aisles are consciously divided from the nave by a change in roof pitch, both featuring a fleuron eaves band, with a lower pitch to the aisles and a tiny unlit clerestory band. Both aisles consist of five bays on a plinth divided by bulky two-stage buttresses with gabled heads. The south aisle has labelled, pointed three-light windows, each with different but authentically Decorated tracery. The north aisle has similar two-light windows with a three-light window at the east side only. Both aisles have similar gabled, single-storey porches. The south porch is finer in detail, featuring squat two-stage diagonal buttresses, solid stone, a ribbed roof, and a niche in the apex bearing an effigy of the Virgin flanked by two low relief medallions. The entrance has deeply moulded pointed reveals with two bands of ball flower ornament and a crested extrados on three clustered pinnacles. The interior of the porch has a ribbed vault. Both aisles terminate just short of the nave to the east, their pent roofs divided by a verge parapet and reverting into smaller pitched roofs clasped against the chancel sides, presenting a triptych of gables to the ritual east to the south.

A chapel of two bays, similar but smaller in scale than the aisles, features single-light windows with three lights to the east. Its partner on the north is the vestry, which breaks the line of the aisle roof with an additional storey reached by an external staircase on the west of pure medieval derivation. A triple-shafted castellated chimney breaks the eaves on the north, set asymmetrically over a gabled single-storey projection lit by two lancets and a trefoil in the apex. The Tudor arched vestry entrance, reached by steps, is positioned between the stair turret and gable. The vestry composition is almost aedicularly arranged, standing on its own and being more domestic than ecclesiastical but of exceptional balance.

The chancel is approximately two bays in length, partly screened by the chapel and vestry, and is only marginally lower than the nave. Diagonal buttresses clasp the angles. The north and south sides are lit by small two-light pointed windows. The east gable has three sculpture niches to the apex and alongside the buttresses, with three low relief medallions below. A large five-light pointed east window with curvilinear tracery dominates the east end.

The entire interior of the church is painted from the floor upward with gold, blue and red predominating in an intensely patterned scheme. The nave consists of five bays with octagonal columns painted in chevron pattern. Pointed moulded arches carry carved lions in the spandrels. Large studs on corbels support scissor-brace collared trusses with fretwork in the apices, single purlins and large curved windbraces. The aisles feature painted plaques depicting the Life of Christ, sixteen in total, with purlin lean-to roofs. A pointed chancel arch with a Last Supper painting above it leads to a pointed covered barrel vault to the chancel. The reredos depicts the Coronation of the Virgin with six angels. Sedilia and piscina with spire finials are positioned above, alongside an Easter sepulchre to the north. An ogee-headed opening features a poppyhead finial with pinnacles at the sides. The font is octagonal, set on a corbelled vase with a fretwork spire cover, all enclosed within an ornate brass-railed enclosure. The pulpit is large and octagonal on a stand with religious scenes cut deep into panel-recesses. A crested arcaded screen divides the chancel, with a brass screen to the tower. The glass is by Wailes.