Church Of St Giles

Church of St Giles

This is an Anglican parish church of the 12th to 15th centuries, altered in 1826 and 1851 by J.H. Hakewill, with a chancel added in 1888 by C.E. Ponting. The building is constructed of rubble stone with stone slate roofs.

The church comprises a nave, south aisle, south porch, a central tower with a small vestry to the north, and a broad chancel. The nave has a 19th-century two-light west window of 1851 positioned above a reset 12th-century carved figure of Christ enthroned with a dragon beneath his feet. Clasping buttresses support the nave. The north side displays two windows: a 2-light and a 3-light pointed window of the 15th century, both with hoodmoulds and separated by a buttress.

The tower is plain rubble stone with neo-Norman bell-openings, possibly dating to 1826 or 1851, a corbel-table, and a flat parapet. Attached to its north is a vestry of uncertain date, featuring ashlar angle piers and a corbel table on the north side, a small pellet-decorated roundel on the west end, and a small 19th-century 2-light window on the east end.

The 1888 chancel is exceptionally ornate in Perpendicular style, consisting of three bays with pinnacled buttresses and a pierced parapet. The north side has three 2-light flat-headed windows with a dripcourse stepped over them; lower dripcourses step down beneath the windows. The ashlar east end is particularly ornate, featuring a parapet stepped up to a niche containing a carved Crucifixion, a broad 5-light 4-centred east window with an ogee finial and flanking finials, and carved panels below the lights. A carved stone monument to W. Whatly, died 1695, is built in above the plinth.

The two-bay south side of the chancel resembles the north side but is wider; the left bay incorporates a re-used medieval pointed doorway. The south aisle appears entirely 19th-century, with plain stepped lancets at each end, coped gables, a lancet to the south, paired lancets, and another lancet. The south porch is apparently 19th-century in date but incorporates an exceptional 12th-century outer doorway. This doorway is round-arched with chevron ornament and a dog-tooth hoodmould with carved head stops. The capitals are heavily carved with shafts entering open mouths, and nook shafts flank each side. A St Christopher figure in a niche is reset above the entry. The inner doorway is pointed with 2-chamfer moulding, and features an oak plank door with a wicket.

Interior

The nave has a 15th-century arched-braced collar roof, while the aisle has a 19th-century roof. The church contains a fine two-bay arcade of around 1200, with one round arch and one pointed arch. The arcade is decorated with chevron ornament on the north side and dog-tooth ornament to the hoodmoulds with carved head stops. The circular centre pier and semi-circular responds have crocket caps; the centre cap also features carved heads. Bases rest on high broad pedestals. A 12th-century broad east arch displays chevron and pellet-decorated ornament with ornamented outer moulding. Column shafts and angle shafts have leaf-caps and volutes.

The tower has a north-side doorway to the vestry and an oak-lined double recess to its right. A fine 14th-century pointed chancel arch with two deep wave mouldings leads into the chancel, which is broad with a three-bay roof on heavy corbels. The roof features arch-braced collar trusses with pierced tracery above the collars and a decorated wall-plate. At the south-east angle is a fine re-used canopied piscina with carved heads beneath the bowl and beneath the canopy shafts.

Fittings include carved plaques in the chancel to Rev W. Charmbury, died 1676, and Rev W. Twentyman, died 1732. The nave contains a north-side stained glass window of around 1900, an ornate later 19th-century carved stone pulpit, and in the south aisle an exceptional Romanesque font of around 1200. The font is circular, set upon a spurred square base with two upper bands of scales, a moulding, and a lower band of large projecting circular knobs.