Church Of St Giles

The Church of St. Giles is a parish church located on Station Road in Cheddington. It was originally built in the 12th century and has undergone alterations in the 14th and 15th centuries, with a 15th-century west tower and north aisle, and a 19th-century south porch and north vestry. The church was restored in the 19th century and again between 1921 and 1925. The structure is made of coursed rubble limestone, with some areas repaired using ashlar and others rendered. The chancel and south porch have tiled roofs, while the rest of the building features lead roofs.

The west tower, which has three stages, includes a semi-octagonal stair turret on the south side, diagonal buttresses, and a restored parapet. The bell-chamber has two-light openings on the east and west sides, with the west side also featuring a three-light cusped window with worn carved head stops on the hoodmould and a restored lancet window above. The nave, north aisle, and chancel have restored 15th-century windows with cusped lights and flat heads, while the chancel has a 19th-century three-light traceried east window. The nave consists of three bays, with a slight projection for the rood loft at the southeast corner. There are four-centred arched doorways, with the north doorway blocked and the south doorway located in a steeply gabled porch that contains re-set fragments of 12th-century masonry. A small doorway is present in the south wall of the chancel.

Inside, the tower arch is double chamfered, with the inner order resting on semi-octagonal piers with moulded caps. The nave features a three-bay north arcade with similar hollow chamfered arches on octagonal piers, and there are carved stone corbels in the south wall. The chancel arch is moulded and dates from the 14th century, and there is a window-seat sedilia. The roofs date from the 19th century.

Notable fittings include a medieval octagonal stone font, an early 17th-century altar table with cup and cover balusters, a carved frieze, and rails; a finely crafted early 17th-century pulpit with panelled sides, carved grotesque scrolls, and a crested sounding board; a poor box dated 1611 on a turned wooden baluster; a tile and mosaic reredos of The Last Supper from 1870 by Powell and Sons; and 19th-century glass in the chancel and north aisle, along with other 19th-century fittings.