Church of St Giles is a Grade I listed building in the Swale local planning authority area, England. First listed on 24 January 1967. A Medieval Church.
Church of St Giles
- WRENN ID
- blind-quoin-thistle
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- Swale
- Constituency
- Faversham and Mid Kent MP: Helen Whately (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 24 January 1967
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Church of St Giles, Church Road, Tonge
- OS grid reference
- TQ 934 640
- Coordinates
- 51.34249, 0.77581
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St. Giles is a parish church dating from the 12th and 14th centuries, with restorations carried out in the 16th, 17th centuries, and in 1893 at a cost of £150. It is constructed of flint with red brick buttresses and a chancel, topped with plain tiled roofs. The church features a nave and aisles, a south tower, and a south porch, with the nave and aisles covered by a single roof. The west door has a triple hollow chamfered surround, and there is a large 14th-century three-light west window with intersecting and cusped tracery, along with brick corner buttresses. The 19th-century timber-framed porch includes a roll-moulded and chamfered south doorway.
The south tower is characterized by twice offset corner buttresses, a rectangular external vice to the southwest, and single lancet lights. The north aisle has three brick buttresses, the jambs of a blocked north doorway, and three gabled 19th-century dormer windows. The chancel's west bay has a single lancet to the south and a blocked two-bay arcade to the north, with the eastern bays rebuilt in red brick on a medieval flint and ragstone base. This section features 17th-century two-light mullioned brick windows and a 19th-century east traceried window.
Inside, the 12th-century nave north arcade consists of four bays with unmoulded round arches, supported by two square and one round pier, the latter having a spurred base and scalloped capital. The south arcade includes a blocked round arch to the west and two chamfered and pointed 13th-century arches with a square pier. A large buttress separates the arcade from the tower arch, which is a 14th-century double chamfered arch resting on moulded octagonal corbels. The nave has a roof supported by three crown posts with beam ends on corbels to the south. The tower features a blocked eastern arch, while the chancel arch is a 19th-century copy of the tower arch. The chancel displays part-exposed jambs of blocked arcading.
Notable fittings include an early 16th-century rood screen with five bays featuring cusped panels and tracery, crenellated and sloping transoms, and attached shafts with crenellated caps. There is a seven-sided 17th-century pulpit adorned with incised lozenge decoration and two attached wrought iron candle brackets, along with box pews. A fragmentary 14th-century St. Christopher scene is painted on the north wall of the nave.
Local climate
Church of St Giles sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 730 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 80% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 75% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 27 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 71% of listed buildings. Of these, 13 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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