Church of St Giles is a Grade I listed building in the Somerset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 11 March 1968. A C14 Church.
Church of St Giles
- WRENN ID
- iron-roof-umber
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- Somerset
- Constituency
- Frome and East Somerset MP: Anna Sabine (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 11 March 1968
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St Giles, Church Walk, Leigh-On-Mendip
- OS grid reference
- ST 692 472
- Coordinates
- 51.22392, -2.44174
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Giles is a parish church located in Leigh-on-Mendip, dating from around 1350 and rebuilt around 1500. It is constructed from Doulting rubble and ashlar, with slate and lead roofs. The church features a clerestoried nave with three bays, north and south aisles, a south porch, a chancel, and a west tower, all in the Perpendicular style.
The three-stage tower has paired set-back buttresses that connect across the angles and terminate in two sets of pinnacles, with the higher ones placed diagonally. There are two additional pinnacles between each set, standing above embattled parapets that are pierced by quatrefoils. The tower has triple bell openings with two lights filled by intricate quatrefoil interlace, and identical blank lights directly below. The west doorway features an ogee gable above a four-light window.
Both the nave and chancel have parapets with pierced quatrefoils and three-light windows with square and pointed heads, respectively. The east window has five lights. The interior is scraped, showcasing an elaborate tie beam roof in both the nave and chancel, with the chancel roof being more ornate and decorated with figures of angels. The north and south aisles have lean-to roofs of a similar design, and the tower features an unfinished fan vault.
The nave includes an arcade of three bays with pointed arches on slender four hollow piers, while the chancel arch and aisle chapel arches are of a similar style. The tower arch has wave moulding. There are upper and lower entrances to the rood, with a scalloped 11th-century foot and a Jacobean cover, incorporating medieval glass in the west windows. The south aisle contains two piscinae and an aumbray, along with 12th-century stone figures of St Catherine on the sill of the southeast window. The chancel features a priest's door to the south, angelic corbels for the lantern veil, and a Jacobean chair. Additionally, there are three aediculated wall plaques from the 18th century located in the chancel and the north and south aisles.
Local climate
Church of St Giles receives an average of 870 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 63% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 69% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 36 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 63% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 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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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
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