Patrick Comerford
During my visits to Cambridge last week, I visited a number of churches including the Quaker Meeting House on Jesus Lane, the Unitarian Church on Emmanuel Road, Saint Clement’s Church on Bridge Street opposite Saint John’s College, and Saint Giles Church at the junction of Castle Street and Chesterton Road.
I have been familiar with these and many other churches in Cambridge since the days when I student at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and staying in Sidney Sussex College. But this was my first time to visit both Saint Clements and Saint Giles.
Saint Giles Church dates from 1092, but the original Norman building underwent various transformations until 1875, when a new church was built on the site and the old church was demolished.
The church added ‘with Saint Peter’ to its name when neighbouring Saint Peter’s Church became redundant. It is home to both a Church of England parish and the Romanian Orthodox Parish of Saint John the Evangelist.
Saint Giles Church is also a venue for concerts, musical events, conferences, celebrations, commemorations, charity sales, an annual parish Summer Fair and a Christmas Tree Festival.
Saint Giles Church is a Grade II* listed church at the corner of Castle Street and Chesterton Road, beside Cambridge Castle and to the north Magdalene College.
From the outside, the church is simple and austere in style, without a spire. But inside it is richly furnished in the style favoured by the Oxford Movement and the Tractarians.
Some parts of the older building were incorporated into the new, Victorian church, including the 11th century former chancel arch, which is now the entrance to the Lady Chapel, and a 12th century doorway.
Saint Giles Church was founded in 1092 by an endowment from Hugolina de Gernon, the wife of Picot of Cambridge, baron of Bourn and county sheriff, who lived at Cambridge Castle.
According to Alfred of Beverley, writing in the 12th century, Hugolina was suffering from a long illness and the king’s physician and other doctors were unable to treat her. She had prayed to Saint Giles on her deathbed, promising to build a church in his honour if she were to recover. She recovered and she built the church.
Picot reportedly endowed the church after consulting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Saint Anselm, and the Bishop of Lincoln, Remigius de Fécamp. Alison Taylor, a former county archaeologist, suggests that rather than founding a new priory, Picot placed an existing minster in the area under the Canons Regular, and that this was done for purely economic reasons.
The church was initially served by a group of six Augustinian canons, who remained at Saint Giles for 20 years until after the death of Picot. They were then granted land in Chesterton by Pain Peverel, and there they established Barnwell Priory.
Saint Giles continued as a small church in the centuries that followed, but it never developed because of its poor location outside the town walls in a densely inhabited area that was badly affected by the Black Death.
During the reign of Elizabeth I, the rectory and advowson were granted to the Bishop of Ely in 1562. The register of baptisms begins in 1596, those of marriages and burials in 1607, and the churchwardens’ accounts in 1620.
The land within the parish of Saint Giles remained largely unenclosed until the early 19th century. Under the enclosure act of 1802, 33 acres went to the Vicar of Saint Giles in compensation for the loss of small tithes, and 165 acres to the Bishop of Ely as an ‘appropriator of the Rectory of Saint Giles’, in compensation for great tithes. More than half the enclosed land went to Cambridge colleges and remained largely as pasture until the 1870s.
Meanwhile, the original structure of the mediaeval church became almost entirely obscured or damaged by a large post-Reformation extension and the addition of box pews. Early in the 19th century the vicar, the Revd William Farish, who was Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge University, enlarged the seating from 100 to 600.
The church was then serving the impoverished and fast-growing part of the upper town, in the neighbourhood of the castle mound and its shire hall, assize court and prison. A new building was planned, incorporating elements from the previous church.
The new Victorian church was designed by the architects TH and F Healey of Bradford, and was built a little north of the church it replaced. The church is built of brick with Doulton stone dressings and a Westmorland slate roof, and retains a collection of mediaeval and 18th details. It also has 19th century fittings by many leading church decorators.
The early 12th century chancel arch of the older church was reset in the new church between the south aisle and the south chapel, and a late 12th-century doorway was reset between the north aisle and the vestry.
An early 17h century stone monument commemorating Nicholas Carr, the university’s second Regius Professor of Greek, was reset in the south wall of the south chapel or Lady Chapel.
Inside, at the High Altar, the original reredos can be glimpsed behind the current triptych. It shows the resurrection appearance of Christ to the apostles on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Saint Peter kneels at the feet of Christ who hands him the keys to heaven and hell.
The interior was decorated in the style favoured by the Oxford Revival, with Charles Eamer Kempe and Ninian Comper commissioned to provide much of the design work. Comper designed both the screen at the west end of the church and the memorial window to Bishop Charles Gore. The East Window and designed by Kempe and was put in place in 1899-1900 as a memorial to the first vicar of the new Saint Giles, Canon Francis Slater.
The church also has works after Michelangelo and a copy of Chatsworth House version of the Adoration of the Magi by Paolo Veronese. Much of the wood carvings were supplied in the late 19th century by Bavarian woodcarvers from Oberammergau. The early 18th century altar rails, believed to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren, came from the English Church in Rotterdam in 1913
The 18 stained glass windows on the south and south sides of the nave are by Robert Turnhill of Heaton, Butler and Bayne, and were installed in 1888. They depict saints arranged in chronological sequence, beginning with Saint Clement of Rome and ending with Bishop Samuel Seabury.
The war memorial in the churchyard, designed by Bodley and Hare and unveiled in 1920, is Grade II-listed.
The church is now part of a team ministry benefice. The Parish of the Ascension was formed in 1982 from two benefices in north-west Cambridge: Saint Giles with Saint Peter’s, and Saint Luke’s Chesterton, which comprised Saint Luke the Evangelist, Victoria Road, and Saint Augustine’s, Richmond Road.
The Team Rector is Canon Philipa King, the Team Vicar is the Revd Dr Janet Bunker, the Revd Jenny Pathmarajah is a part-time Methodist minister, and Father Dragos Herescu is the priest of the the Romanian Orthodox Parish of Saint John the Evangelist and director of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS).
Other members of the ministry team at Saint Giles include the Revd Dr Tom Ambrose, assistant priest, the Revd Canon Dr Owen Spencer-Thomas, resident priest, and Margaret Cooper and Gill Ambrose, lay ministers.
• The 9 am Sunday Eucharist at Saint Giles uses the Common Worship liturgy. It is partly sung and includes the use of incense and hymns are accompanied on the pipe organ. The 10 am Thursday morning Communion is a quiet, reflective service in the Lady Chapel, followed by refreshments. The church is open daily for private prayer and for visitors.
