The church calendar today remembers Saint Giles (1 September). I visited Saint Giles-in-the-Fields Church in London a few days ago, and hope to describe the church in the days to come. But, on his feast day, I thought I should look at some of the churches I know that are dedicated to Saint Giles.
Saint Giles is said to have been born in Athens ca 645-650, the son of King Theodore and Queen Elizabeth. He is the patron of beggars and people with disabilities because, although he was disabled, he devoted his life and his personal wealth to helping people in their sufferings and afflictions.
Saint Giles died ca 710. The monastery he founded at Saint-Gilles in Provence became an important place on the pilgrimage routes both to Compostela and to the Holy Land. Most mediaeval churches dedicated to Saint Giles stand by roadsides, offering weary travellers a sign of rest and peace.
1, Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford:
The Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, the parish church of Stony Stratford, is part of the rich tapestry of a pretty market town on the banks of the River Ouse that marks the boundary between Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire.
Stony Stratford first developed along the Roman Watling Street, on the boundary between the ancient manors of Calverton and Wolverton. The de Veres, Earls of Oxford, held Calverton from 1244 until 1526, while on the Wolverton side the title was inherited by the de Wolvertons who held the land until the 14th century. Both manors provided chapels of ease from the 13th century, and so Stony Stratford became the first town in Buckinghamshire to have two churches. The church in the Calverton part of the town was dedicated to Saint Giles, while the other within the Manor of Wolverton was dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene, and fairs were held in the town on the festivals of both saints.
The chancel or east end of Saint Giles was so ruinous in 1757 that it was taken down, and Saint Giles was rebuilt in 1776-1777 to designs by the Warwick-based architect Francis Hiorne (1744-1789). He was the architect of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, and may have used his church in Stony Stratford as a prototype for his much larger church.
At the same time, Arthur Chichester (1739-1799), 5th Earl of Donegall, commissioned Hiorne to design Saint Anne’s Church on Donegall Street, Belfast (1776), later replaced by Saint Anne’s Cathedral. Hiorne was also consulted on the design of Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church, Belfast (1783). Donegall was a large landowner in Belfast, Co Donegal, Co Wexford, and Staffordshire, his properties once included Comberford Hall, and he gave his name to Donegal House in Lichfield.
When he was rebuilding Saint Giles, Hiorne retained the 15th century tower, and this is the only part of the original structure still standing. The 80 ft tower with embattlements is in the perpendicular style and has a clock and a peal of six bells.
Hiorne redesigned the church in ‘Strawberry Hill Gothic,’ a style marking the beginnings of the Gothic Revival in architecture. The church is a lofty building, with a nave, two side aisles, a chancel, and galleries on either side.
A Lady Chapel was created in the south-east corner of the nave in the late 19th century, stained-glass windows were installed, a Gothic chancel screen was installed, and the side galleries were added and decorated. A series of stained glass tableaux by NHJ Westlake was installed beneath the galleries in 1889-1897. Above the galleries, stained-glass lozenges depict saints and martyrs and scenes from Scripture.
When the old vestry in the basement of the west tower was inadequate by 1892, two new vestries for the clergy and choir were built beside the north side of the chancel. They were designed in the 13th century English Gothic style by the local architect, Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924).
Changes continued in the 20th century. The statue of Saint Giles and the hind above the west doors and a stained-glass window by Kempe & Co date from 1903. The apsidal sanctuary was replaced by a squared-off sanctuary in 1928. The Lychgate and Calvary in the south-east corner of the churchyard were built in 1931.
A fire caused considerable damage to the interior of Saint Giles in 1964. The Diocese of Oxford questioned the need for two churches and parish priests in Stony Stratford. At first it was thought the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin should be extended and become the parish church. It was decided, however, to close Saint Mary the Virgin and to retain Saint Giles and to reorder the church. Saint Mary the Virgin was closed, the two parishes were combined and Saint Giles Church was reconsecrated as the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles, on Palm Sunday 7 April 1968.
2, Saint Giles, Oxford:
Saint Giles Church in Oxford is at the north end of the wide thoroughfare of Saint Giles, best known for the Martyrs’ Memorial to the south. The 900-year-old church stands at the point where Saint Giles forks and divides to become Woodstock Road to the left or west and Banbury Road to the right or east, and it faces both Little Clarendon Street and Keble Road.
Oxford’s main war memorial adjoins the south end of Saint Giles churchyard, and other nearby landmarks on the west side include the former Radcliffe Infirmary and Observatory, Somerville College, Saint Aloysius Oratory Church, the Eagle and Child, which sadly has been closed too long, Saint Cross College, Pusey House and Blackfriars; to the east, the nearby landmarks include Saint John’s College and the Lamb and Flag.
Saint Giles is a pretty church first built in the 12th and 13th centuries. But the first record of a church on the site dates from the Domesday Book in 1086, when a landowner named Edwin declared that he wanted to build a church adjoining his land, outside the north wall of the city.
When the church was first built it stood in open fields, 500 metres north of the city walls, with no other building between it and the city’s north gate, where the Church of Saint Michael at the North Gate stands. About 1,000 people lived within the walls of Oxford at the time.
Soon, however, before the area outside the city walls began to be settled, and Saint Giles had a parish of its own that had become widely spread and thinly settled. Oxford has expanded over the centuries, and Saint Giles is now a city centre church.
The incumbents of Saint Giles have included two notable associates of Archbishop William Laud: William Juxon (1609-1615), who later became President of Saint John’s College, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury; and Thomas Turner (1624-1629), later Dean of Canterbury
3, Saint Giles, Cambridge:
Saint Giles Church at the junction of Castle Street and Chesterton Road, Cambridge, 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.
The 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 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.
4, Saint Giles, Cheadle:
Saint Giles’s Church and its 200 ft spire dominate the Staffordshire market town of Chealde (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner once described Staffordshire as ‘Pugin-land’ after visiting Cheadle, the market town dominated by Saint Giles’s Church and its 200 ft spire. He wrote: ‘Nowhere can one study and understand Pugin better than in Staffordshire – not only his forms and features but his mind, and not only his churches but his secular architecture as well.’
John Talbot (1791-1852), 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived at Alton Towers and commissioned AWN Pugin to build many churches in Staffordshire, including Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle.
Pugin’s interior, including his rood screen, remain largely intact in Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)Lord Shrewsbury, once ‘the most prominent British Catholic of day,’ extended his family’s Irish connections when he married Maria Theresa Talbot, daughter of Thomas William Talbot of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford – an Irish branch of the Talbot family that were patrons of Pugin too.
Pugin died when he was only 40 on14 September 1852; Lord Shrewsbury died two months later, on 9 November 1852. But church architecture and church decoration would never be the same again – in England or in Ireland.
5, Saint Giles on the Hill, Norwich:
Although we stayed overnight in Norwich last year in Saint Giles House Hotel on Saint Giles Street, I never managed to get inside the church that gives its name to the street. Saint Giles on the Hill sits is also known as the Wisteria Church. Saint Giles has the tallest church tower in Norwich at a height of 120 ft. The wisteria was planted by a former priest at the church in celebration of his daughter’s wedding over 100 years ago and it still flourishes each year.
Saint Giles is the patron of lepers and nursing mothers, and a hospital for lepers was formerly close by beside the gate in the city walls, called Saint Giles Gate. The church was originally founded by a priest called Elwyn and given by him to the Benedictine monks of Norwich Cathedral. Later, the dean and chapter who appointed a chaplain.
The church is noted in the Domesday Book (1086), but the present church dates from 1386. The tower was almost finished by 1424, and the building was complete by 1430. The porch was added about a century after the main church was built, and which has a noble carved stone façade, a fine fan vaulted roof and a small room above, called a parvise.
The main church consists of a nave with two side aisles, separated by an arcade of five bays. The church was restored by Richard Phipson in 1866-1867.
6, Saint Giles, Git, Sarawak:
During our extended visit to Kuching last October and November, the Revd Dr Jeffry Renos Nawie took us on a number of whirlwind tours of the seven churches and chapels in his parishes and seven other churches and chapels in the Diocese of Kuching. His parish and mission area in the Diocese of Kuching covers vast rural areas south of Kuching.
Father Jeffry is a former principal of Saint Thomas’s, the Anglican diocesan boys’ school in Kuching, and has a doctorate in education. After he retired, he worked as the diocesan secretary in the diocesan office close to Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, and at weekends he served in Saint George’s Church, Punau, on the fringes of Padawan.
Today, Father Jeffry is the parish priest of Saint Augustine’s Church, Mambong, which was designated a mission district last year (26 May 2024) by Bishop Danald Jute of Kuching.
Saint Giles Chapel in Kampung Git, near Siburan, south of Kuching, marked its sixtieth anniversary last year. Kampung Git is a small Bidayuh village about 30 km south-west of Kuching. The chapel stands on a hilltop location above the village, and is reached by a steep climb of steps.
Saint Giles Chapel has an interesting belltower, with an old graveyard behind the chapel, and a school below the chapel.
