Saint Giles-in-the-Fields, a Palladian Revival church, stands at a crossroads in radical architectural change

Saint Giles Day is being celebrated in Saint Giles-in-the-Fields Church, London, today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in London a few days ago, one of the churches I visited was Saint Giles-in-the-Fields. Saint Giles Day was last Monday (1 September 2025), and I marked the day by posting photographs and memories of a half a dozen churches I know with his name. But Saint Giles Day is being celebrated in Saint Giles-in-the-Fields today, with Choral Holy Communion, sung by the Saint Giles Quartet (11 am) and Evensong sung by the Saint Giles Choir.

Saint Giles-in-the-Fields is the parish church of the St Giles area in the London Borough of Camden. St Giles is part of the West End, and much or all of St Giles usually is taken to be a part of Bloomsbury. The places of interest include Saint Giles-in-the-Fields, Seven Dials, the Phoenix Garden, and St Giles Circus.

St Giles Circus was the site of a gallows until the 15th century, the Great Plague in 1665 started in St Giles, and in the 18th and 19th centuries the Rookery was one of the worst slums in Britain, with a large Irish Catholic population that gave the area nicknames such as ‘Little Ireland’ and ‘The Holy Land’. St Giles Rookery and the Seven Dials were known for poverty and squalor and became centres for crime, prostitution, gambling houses and ‘gin palaces’, and ‘Saint Giles’ Greek’ was a secret language used by thieves and beggars.

Inside Saint Giles-in-the-Fields, London, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Church of Saint Giles-in-the-Fields gives its name to the surrounding district of St Giles, between Seven Dials, Bloomsbury, Holborn and Soho. But the church traces its story back to the chapel of a 12th-century monastery and leper hospital in the fields between Westminster and the City of London.

The present church is the third on the site since 1101 and was rebuilt in the Palladian style to designs by the architect Henry Flitcroft in 1731-1733.

The first recorded church on the site was a chapel of the Parish of Holborn attached to a monastery and leper hospital founded by Matilda of Scotland, the wife of Henry I, ca 1101-1109. It was later attached to the larger Hospital of the Lazar Brothers at Burton Lazars, Leicestershire.

When Saint Giles was founded, it stood outside the City of London, on the main road to Tyburn and Oxford. Between 1169 and 1189, Henry II granted the hospital the lands, gifts and privileges that secured its future.

Inside Saint Giles-in-the-Fields, London, looking towards the west end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The chapel probably began to function as the church of a hamlet that grew up around the hospital. The hospital buildings would have included the church, the Master’s House, and the ‘Spittle Houses’, and the Precinct of the Hospital may have included the whole of the island site now bounded by Saint Giles High Street, Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue.

A Papal Bull in the 13th century confirmed the hospital’s privileges and granted it special protection. Edward I assigned it in 1299 to the Hospital of Burton Lazars, Leicestershire, a house of the order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem. The warden of the hospital was answerable to the Master of Burton Lazars.

Richard II transferred the hospital, chapel and lands to the Cistercian abbey of Saint Mary de Graces by the Tower of London in 1391. But after a legal and sometimes violent dispute, the Cistercian ownership was revoked in 1402 and the hospital was returned to the Lazar Brothers.

Saint Giles Fields was at the centre of Sir John Oldcastle’s Lollard uprising in 1414. Many of the rebels were brutally executed and Oldcastle was hanged in chains and burnt ‘gallows and all’ in St Giles Fields on 14 December 1417.

The present church is the third on the site since 1101 and was rebuilt in the Palladian style to designs by the architect Henry Flitcroft in 1731-1733 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

At the dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformation, Saint Giles Hospital and the Hospital of Burton St Lazar were dissolved in 1544, and all the hospital lands, rights and privileges, excluding the chapel, were granted to John Dudley, Lord Lisle, in 1548. The chapel survived as the local parish church, and when the first Rector of Saint Giles was appointed in 1547, the phrase ‘in the fields’ was added to the name to distinguish it from Saint Giles, Cripplegate.

Saint Giles was at the centre of the Babington Plot later in the 16th century. Pope Pius V issued a papal bull, Regnans in Excelsis, in 1570, giving licence to English Catholics to overthrow Elizabeth I. A group of recusants, secret Catholics and Jesuits drew up a plan in 1585 in the precincts of Saint Giles to murder Elizabeth I, invite a Spanish invasion of England, and place Mary Queen of Scots on the throne.

When the plot was exposed, the conspirators were returned to Saint Giles churchyard to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Ballard and Babington and others were executed on 20 September 1586; Mary Queen of Scots was executed on 8 February 1587.

The original churchyard and burying place is on the south side of the church on the site of the original burial yard of the Leper Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

After parts of the mediaeval church collapsed in the 1610s, work on building a new church began in 1623. It was completed in 1630 and was consecrated by William Laud, Bishop of London, on 26 January 1630.

The Rector of Saint Giles, the Revd Roger Maynwaring, was fined and deprived of his clerical functions by Parliament in 1628 after two sermons advocating the divine right of kings and he was accused of challenging the rights of Parliament.

When Archbishop Laud’s former chaplain, William Heywood, became the rector in 1638, he began to transform Saint Giles in the High Church, Laudian fashion. Puritan parishioners presented a petition to parliament accusing Heywood of ‘popish reliques’ and said he had introduced ‘at needless expense to the parish’, including an elaborate carved oak screen and expensive altar rails.

Heywood was still the rector when the English Civil War began in 1642, and most of the ornaments his ornamentation was stripped out and sold off in 1643. After Charles I was executed, Heywood fled London and lived in Wiltshire.

One of the few surviving chest tombs in Saint Giles Churchyard is the tomb of Richard Penderel, who sheltered King Charles II after the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

John Sharp introduced a weekly Holy Communion and restored the Daily Offices (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Puritan ministers were ejected from Saint Giles at the Restoration in 1660, and Heywood was re-instated. He was succeeded in 1663 by Dr Robert Boreman, another deprived Royalist, who is remembered for his bitter exchange with Richard Baxter, a leading Puritan and occasional parishioner of Saint Giles.

A number of Roman Catholic priests and laymen, executed for High Treason during the Titus Oates plot in 1681 were buried near the church’s north wall, including Archbishop Oliver Plunkett of Armagh, although his head is now in Drogheda and his body is at Downside Abbey, Somerset. All 12 were beatified by Pope Pius XI and Oliver Plunkett was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1975.

Meanwhile, John Sharp, who became the rector in 1675, was seen as bridging the post-restoration divisions within the Church of England. He spent 16 years reforming and reconstituting the parish, preached twice on Sundays, introduced a weekly Holy Communion and restored the Daily Offices in the church. After the Williamite Revolution, Sharp became the Dean of Canterbury in 1689, and Archbishop of York in 1691.

Henry Flitcroft’s spire was modelled on the steeple by James Gibbs at Saint Martin’s in the Fields (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The high number of plague burials in and around the church may have caused the damp problems that emerged in the church by 1711, and the churchyard had risen as much as eight feet above the nave floor.

The parishioners petitioned the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches for a grant to rebuild the church. A new church was built in 1730-1734, and was designed by the architect Henry Flitcroft in the Palladian style. The first stone was laid by the Bishop of Norwich, William Baker, a former rector, on Michaelmas, 29 September 1731.

Flitcroft was inspired by the Caroline buildings of Inigo Jones rather than the works of Wren, Hawksmoor or James Gibbs, although his spire was modelled on the steeple by James Gibbs at Saint Martin’s in the Fields.

The mosaic ‘Time, Death and Judgment’ by GF Watts (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Flitcroft’s church represents a shift from the Baroque to the Palladian form in church architecture in England. It has been described as ‘one of the least known but most significant episodes in Georgian church design, standing at a crucial crossroads of radical architectural change and representing … the first Palladian Revival church to be erected in London.’ The Vestry House was built at the same time.

The East Window depicts the Transfiguration. The paintings of Moses and Aaron on either side of the altar are by Francisco Vieira the Younger, court painter to the King of Portugal.

The mosaic ‘Time, Death and Judgment’ by GF Watts was formerly in Saint Jude’s Church, Whitechapel. The cartoon for it was drawn by Cecil Schott and the mosaic was executed by Salviati.

The children of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron were bapised in the baptismal font (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The baptismal font, dating from 1810, is of white marble with Greek Revival details and is said to have been designed by Sir John Soane. William and Clara Everina Shelley, the children of the novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, were baptised in the font on 9 March 1818, along with Allegra, the illegitimate daughter of Mary’s step-sister Claire Clairmont and the poet Lord Byron.

The haste in baptising these children is attributed to Shelley’s debts, his ill-health and his fears about the custody of his children, along with the desire to take Allegra to her father who was then in Venice. All three children were to die in childhood in Italy.

John Wesley is said to have preached occasionally at Evening Prayer in Saint Giles. In the east end of the north aisle is a small box pulpit from a chapel where both John and Charles Wesley preached. George Whitfield and John William Fletcher also preached from the same pulpit. The chapel later became All Saints’ Church, West Street, and when it closed the pulpit was moved to Saint Giles.

The Resurrection Gate at the west end of the churchyard was rebuilt to designs by William Leverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Resurrection Gate at the west end of the churchyard facing Flitcroft Street is a grand lychgate in the Doric order. It once stood on the north side of the churchyard, where condemned prisoners would see it on their way to their execution at Tyburn. The gate is adorned with a bas-relief of the Day of Judgment, probably carved in 1686.

The gate was rebuilt in 1810 to designs by William Leverton. It was deemed unsafe in 1865, taken down and re-erected opposite the west door in anticipation of the re-routing of Charing Cross Road. But Charing Cross Road by-passed Flitcroft Street, and the gate now faces a narrow alley.

The Transfiguration depicted in the east window … most of the Victorian stained glass in Saint Giles was destroyed during World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

As the population of the area grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, no more room was available for burials in the graveyard, and many parishioners, including the architect Sir John Soane, were buried in the churchyard at Saint Pancras Old Church.

The architects Sir Arthur Blomfield and William Butterfield made minor alterations to the interior of the church in 1875 and 1896.

Most of the Victorian stained glass in Saint Giles was destroyed during World War II and the roof of the nave was severely damaged. The Vestry House was filled with rubble, the churchyard was fenced with chicken wire, and the Rectory on Great Russell Street was destroyed.

Saint Giles-in-the-Fields uses the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and the King James Bible, and the church is a corporate member of the Prayer Book Society (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Revd Gordon Taylor, who was appointed rector after the war, set about rebuilding the church and parish. The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 24 October 1951 and Gordon Taylor raised funds for a major restoration in 1952-1953, praised by Sir John Betjeman as ‘one of the most successful post-war church restorations’.

Taylor also rebuilt the congregation, refurbished the Saint Giles’s Almshouses and revived the ancient parochial charities. Despite the liturgical changes introduced in the 1960s, he maintained the use of the Book of Common Prayer.

George Chapman’s memorial was designed by Inigo Jones (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Giles is often known to as the ‘Poets’ Church’ because of its connections with several poets, dramatists, actors and translators, and the Poetry Society holds its annual general meeting in Saint Giles Vestry House.

An early post-reformation rector, Nathaniel Baxter, was a priest and poet, and was once a tutor to Sir Philip Sidney. He is the author of a lengthy philosophical poem ‘Sir Philip Sydney’s Ourania’ (1606).

Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury, who was buried at Saint Giles in 1648, was a brother of the priest-poet George Herbert and was a poet too.

George Chapman (1559-1634) published the first complete English translation of the works of Homer, and is the subject of John Keats’s sonnet ‘On first looking into Chapman’s Homer’. Inigo Jones designed his memorial.

James Shirley and Thomas Nabbes are both buried in the churchyard, and the politician, pamphleteer, poet and MP Andrew Marvell was buried at Saint Giles in 1678.

The translator Sir Roger L’Estrange, who produced the first English translation of Aesop’s fables for children is buried at Saint Giles. L’Estrange also discovered and foiled the Rye House Plot in 1683. John Milton’s daughter Mary was baptised in Saint Giles in 1647 and L’Estrange is often remembered for his attempt to suppress lines from Book I of John Milton’s Paradise Lost for potentially impugning the king:

As when the Sun new ris’n
Looks through the Horizontal misty Air
Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon
In dim Eclips disastrous twilight sheds
On half the Nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes Monarchs

The organ was rebuilt in 1699 by Christian Smith, a nephew of the organ builder ‘Father’ Smith (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The 17th century organ was destroyed in the English Civil War. George Dallam built a replacement in 1678, which was rebuilt in 1699 by Christian Smith, a nephew of the organ builder ‘Father’ Smith. A second rebuilding was completed in 1734 by Gerard Smith the younger. The organ was rebuilt in 1856 and in 1960, and it was extensively restored by William Drake in 2006.

People with memorials in Saint Giles include: Luke Hansard, printer to the House of Commons; Thomas Earnshaw, watchmaker; Cecil Calvert, the first proprietor of Maryland; William Balmain, one of the founders of New South Wales; and John Coleridge Patteson, first Anglican Bishop of Melanesia and martyred, who is commemorated in the Church of England on 20 September.

Saint Giles-in-the-Fields is the custodian of the White Ensign flown by HMS Indefatigable at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay 80 years ago, on 5 September 1945.

Saint Giles is the patron of beggars, so it is appropriate the mission of Saint Giles gives a priority to the destitute and the homeless, and the church works with many homeless charities.

The Simon Community provides a weekly Street Café outside the church every Saturday and Sunday. Quaker Homeless Action provide a lending library at Saint Giles every Saturday for people who otherwise would not have access to books.

The pulpit from which John and Charles Wesley once preached (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Giles-in-the-Fields is a parish church in the Diocese of London, and is served by three clergy members and a licensed lay minister: the Revd Tom Sander has been the rector since 2021; the Revd Chris Smalling is an associate priest; the Revd Philip Dawson has been the curate since 2023; and Will James is a licensed lay minister. Jonathan Bunney is the Director of Music.

The two Sunday services are Sung Eucharist at 11 am and Evensong at 6:30 pm. The church is open daily for quiet prayer, with Morning Prayer every morning at 8:15 am, and said Holy Communion on Wednesdays at 1 pm. Saint Giles uses the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and the King James Bible, and the church is a corporate member of the Prayer Book Society. On the first Sunday in the month, the extended form of Sung Eucharist includes sung responses, Creed and Gloria.

The patronal Feast of Saint Giles is celebrated on the nearest Sunday to 1 September, and this year the feast is being celebrated today (Sunday 7 September 2025).

The seal of the mediaeval hospital of Saint Giles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A whirlwind tour on Saint Giles Day of half a dozen churches dedicated to Saint Giles

A statue of Saint Giles above the west door of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford … today is feast of Saint Giles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

Inside Saint Mary and Saint Giles, Stony Stratford, looking east … the church was rebuilt by Francis Hiorne in 1776-1777 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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 at the north end of the wide thoroughfare of Saint Giles in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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.

Inside Saint Giles Church, Oxford, facing the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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 is at the corner of Castle Street and Chesterton Road in Cambridge, beside Cambridge Castle and to the north of Magdalene College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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.

Inside Saint Giles Church, Cambridge, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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:

Saint Giles on the Hill, also known as the Wisteria Church, has the tallest church tower in Norwich (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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.

Saint Giles (centre) above the south porch in Norwich, with statues above by David Holgate of Saint Margaret and Saint Benedict (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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:

Saint Giles Chapel in Git stands on a hilltop location above the village,and is reached by a steep climb of steps (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

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 marked its 60th anniversary last year (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

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.

The arms of the Talbot family, Earls of Shrewsbury, represented on the doors of Saint Giles’s Church in Cheadle, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Quaker Meeting House on North Street and its garden are among the hidden gems to be found in Leighton Buzzard

Friends’ Meeting House in Leighton Buzzard was first built in 1787 and registered in 1789 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I walked around Leighton Buzzard and Linslade recently, spending an afternoon looking at the historic buildings and churches, including All Saints’ Church in the centre of Leighton Buzzard, and Saint Barnabas Church in Linslade, two or three minutes walk from Leighton Buzzard railway station.

I also visited the Quaker Meeting House at 25 North Street, one of the hidden gems of the Leighton Buzzard is, tucked away out of sight behind the behind the houses and tall narrow gates.

There were Quakersor members of the Religious Society of Friends in Leighton Buzzard in the mid-18th century, but there was no meeting house there so they travelled to worship in Woburn Sands, where there was a meeting at Hogsty End.

The house of Joseph Brooks in Leighton Buzzard was registered for Quaker worship in 1761, but a regular meeting was not settled in the town until 1776, when meetings were held in a loft at the rear of premises in Market Square owned by John Grant, a grocer and chandler. John Grant built what is now the small meeting room in 1787 and registered it as a meeting house in 1789.

The Quaker Meeting House in Leighton Buzzard is tucked away behind houses on North Street and tall narrow gates (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The main meeting room was added when the building was extended in 1812. At the time, the extension was for the women’s meeting. John Grant’s widow finalised the transfer to Friends of the meeting house to Friends in 1844, along with the adjoining cottages, which Grant had also bought. The cottages are now managed by a housing association.

The plain interior of the meeting house expressed the simplicity demanded of Friends at the time. The high windows and lack of distracting ornament were designed to help Friends detach from the world outside during the period of worship.

The meeting house was restored in 1953 and the wood stained to the colour it is today. The benches remain but are set to the side of the building, clearing a space for a circle of chairs in the centre of the room.

There is no hierarchy in meeting today, and worshippers are welcome to sit where they please, but this was not the case when the meeting house was built. The ministers’ gallery and facing benches remain where they were at the beginning of the 19th century when the endorsed ministers and the elders sat there.

The benches now placed at the side of the meeting room were once arranged in two rows, one for men and one for women, and faced towards the elders and ministers.

At the opposite end of the meeting room to the minsters’ gallery is the 19th century room divide. Since 1670, men and women Friends had held separate business meetings. The room divide made a space for each meeting and has shutters that can be opened for large meetings and for weddings and funerals.

When men’s and women’s meetings were set up, it was intended that they had spiritual equality and parallel agendas on church affairs but the meetings soon became gendered. Thus the women became responsible for the care of the poor and for the domestic arrangements in the meeting house and so on, while the men took responsibility for church affairs.

Towards the end of the 19th century, women began to question the separation and Quakers held their first fully United Yearly Meeting in 1909.

There is a further room divide in the small meeting room. This divide was built in the 1960s and provides a sound barrier between the two rooms, particularly when there are enough children for a children’s meeting or tea is being prepare while a meeting continues.

The meeting house seen from the garden or former burial ground (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

As part of the 1953 restoration, the gravestones were moved from the graves to the sides of the burial ground, and a lawn was laid over the burial area. In keeping with Quaker practice, the gravestones are of the same size and materials and have the same form of words. They were placed in the same manner in the burial ground to avoid distinction between rich and poor. Some of the gravestones have been re-laid to make a path to the far end of the garden.

Quakers established a Lancastrian or British School in Leighton Buzzard in 1813 and in 1835-1839 Leighton Monthly Meeting donated to American Quaker efforts to help runaway slaves from the southern plantations.

A number of prominent Friends in Leighton Buzzard were bankers such as the Bassett and Harris families. The Bassett family were probably the best known of these Quaker families. Peter Bassett was influential in creating a bank in the town, now Barclay’s Bank. Mary Bassett has a school named after her in the town. She died in London but her ashes are buried in Leighton Buzzard burial ground.

The garden in the burial ground behind the meeting house is now a quiet place to be still and find peace. There are occasional garden working parties and a labyrinth of sorts cut into the grass offers a spiral walk for meditation.

• Meeting for Worship is held in the Meeting House each Sunday at 10:45 am, and there is a 30-minute Meeting for Worship on the first Wednesdays at 12:30.

The garden behind the meeting house is now a quiet place to be still and find peace (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint John’s College was founded to train priests in 1555 and has since become Oxford’s wealthiest college

Saint John’s College, Oxford, was founded in 1555 by Sir Thomas White to train or educate priests (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Before visiting the Lamb and Flag at the end of a day in Oxford earlier this week, I also visited Saint John’s College, which has owned the pub next door for hundreds of years.

I have visited the chapel in Saint John’s College before, but this was my first time to stroll through the quads and gardens and to admire the architecture of the college buildings.

Saint John’s, on the east side of St Giles’ in the centre of Oxford, has over 400 undergraduate students, up to 250 postgraduate students, over 100 academic staff, and about 100 other staff members. The college was founded 470 years ago in 1555. Today it is the wealthiest college in Oxford, with assets worth more than £790 million, largely thanks to the 19th-century suburban development of land it owns in Oxford.

Saint John’s College on the east side of St Giles’ is said to be the wealthiest college in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Sir Thomas White, a former Lord Mayor of London, was granted a royal patent on 1 May 1555 to create a charitable institution for the education of students within the University of Oxford. White was a Roman Catholic, and his original vision was for a college that would train or educate Roman Catholic clergy who would support the Counter-Reformation under Queen Mary. Saint Edmund Campion, a Roman Catholic martyr, was one of the first students.

White acquired buildings on the east side of St Giles’, north of Balliol College and Trinity College, that had belonged to the former College of Saint Bernard. It had been founded as a Cistercian monastery and house of study in 1437 and was closed in 1540 during the dissolution of the monasteries in the Tudor Reformation. White’s grant also included half of the grove of Durham College, which had also been suppressed and whose buildings had become Trinity College.

White was the Master of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, and he established a number of educational foundations, including the Merchant Taylors’ School.

Saint John’s initially had a strong focus on educating future priest … Front Quad and the Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Initially, Saint John’s was a small college and was not well endowed. But the endowments it received at its foundation and during its first 20 years have since served it well.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, the fellows lectured in rhetoric, Greek, and dialectic, but not directly in theology. However, Saint John’s initially had a strong focus on educating future priest, and in its earlier years produced a large number Anglican clergy. White also included the patronage of the parish of Saint Giles in the endowments, and for centuries the Vicars of Saint Giles were either fellows or former fellows of the college.

In the second half of the 19th century, Saint John’s benefited, as ground landlord, from the suburban development of Oxford. The college also it became a more open society in those decades, and it later earned a reputation for degrees in law, medicine and PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics).

The Front Quad incorporates buildings built for the Cistercians of Saint Bernard’s College, dating back to 1437 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint John’s is on a single 5.5 ha site, and most of the college buildings are organised around seven quadrangles or quads.

The Front Quadrangle mainly consists of buildings built for the Cistercians of Saint Bernard’s College. Construction began in 1437, but much of the east range was not complete when the site passed to the crown in 1540 at the dissolution of the monastic houses. Christ Church took control of the site in 1546 and Thomas White acquired it in 1554. He made major alterations to create the current college hall, and designated the north part of the east range as the lodging of the president, for which it is still used today.

Front Quad was gravelled until the college’s 400th anniversary in 1955, when the current circular lawn and paving were laid out. The turret clock, made by John Knibb, dates from 1690. The main tower above the Porters’ Lodge has a statue of John the Baptist by Eric Gill.

Inside the chapel in Saint John’s College, first built in 1530 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The chapel at Saint John’s was first built in 1530, when it was dedicated to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. It was rededicated to Saint John the Baptist in 1557.

Thomas White, William Laud and William Juxon are buried beneath the chapel. All three were presidents of the college, abd Laud and Juxon became Archbishops of Canterbury. To the south of the chancel, a hidden pew is directly accessible from the President’s Lodgings. In the past, it allowed the only woman in college, the president’s wife, to worship without being seen by the men present.

The Baylie chapel in the north-east corner was added 1662-1669 and refitted in 1949. The interior of the chapel underwent major changes in 1840, involving the gothic revival pews, roof, wall arcading and west screen, and the chapel as we see it today is largely a result of reordering by Edward Blore in 1843, with later alterations by Sir Edward Maufe in the 1930s.

The chequerboard floor is said to date back to the Restoration period, but most other features are 19th century: the altar rails installed by Archbishop William Laud were moved to the parish church in Northmoor, west of Oxford, and the remains of the 17th-century screen are in Painswick House, Gloucestershire.

The wooden reredos behind the altar was made by Charles Eamer Kempe in 1892. Kempe also designed the east window, with figures including Sir Thomas White and Henry Chichele, the founder of Saint Bernard’s College.

The reredos in the chapel was designed by Charles Eamer Kempe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

At the reordering, the majority of the monuments were placed in the small Baylie Chapel to the north of the altar. These include a monument to William Paddy, the physician to James I, surrounded by the snakes of Asclepius; a black urn with the heart of the antiquary Richard Rawlinson; and a marble relief of the baptism of Christ that commemorates William Holmes, a benefactor of the college.

William Laud endowed the college richly during and after his presidency, and the fine pre-Reformation ecclesiastical vestments that he gave are displayed every term. Laud’s friendship with Orlando Gibbons led to the composition of ‘This is the record of John’ for the choir of Saint John’s, and this setting of a text from Saint John’s Gospel is sung regularly in Chapel. It is now recognised as one of the supreme English anthems.

The eagle lectern was carved by John Snetzler in 1773, and the silver candlesticks date from 1720. The altar cross of 1945 commemorates the 300th anniversary of Archbishop Laud’s execution in 1645.

Archbishop William Laud, Richard Baylie and Archbishop William Juxon are commemorated in the window in the Baylie Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

White left instructions for services to be sung by a choir of men and boys. Laud gave the college its first pipe organ, but the original organ was removed in 1651. Nevertheless, Saint John’s continued to have a boys’ choir until the late 1960s.

A new organ was made for the chapel in 2008 by Bernard Aubertin, who also built the small chamber organ at the end of the choir stalls.

The Revd Dr Elizabeth Macfarlane is the Chaplain of Saint John’s College. Morning Prayer is said every weekday in full term at 8.30 am. Sung Evensong at 6 pm on Sundays includes an address by the Chaplain or a guest preacher, an anthem and three hymns. The Eucharist is celebrated on Mondays at12:15 pm and Choral Evensong is at 6 pm on Wednesdays.

The college choir today sings evensong services on Sundays and Wednesdays during term time, and sings the grace at Sunday formal hall. Since 1923, the choir has been directed by student organ scholars. The present three-manual organ by Bernard Aubertin was installed in 2008.

The chapel also houses significant pieces of contemporary art. A small triptych of the Life of John the Baptist is by a local artist Nicholas Mynheer. The Baylie Chapel has a modern Coptic icon of the Baptism of Christ, made in Egypt. Two windows in the chapel by the stained glass artist Ervin Bossanyi depict scenes in the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Canterbury Quad, completed in 1636, is the first example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Canterbury Quadrangle is the first example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Oxford. It was substantially commissioned by Archbishop Laud and completed in 1636.

The college library there consists of four connected parts: the Old Library (south side, 1596-1598), the Laudian Library (1631-1635, above the east colonnade, overlooking the garden), the Paddy Room (1971-1977) and the new Library and Study Centre, designed by Wright & Wright Architects (2019). Until it moved to the Kendrew Quadrangle in 2010, the Holdsworth Law Library was in the south-west corner of Canterbury Quadrangle.

The college holds Robert Graves’ Working Library and in 1936 it acquired the AE Housman Classics Library' with 300 books and pamphlets, many with hand-written notes by Housman in the margins or on loose leaves.

The Holmes Building (1794) is a south spur off the Canterbury Quad, with fellows’ rooms.

The North Quad is the irregular product of a series of buildings built since the college foundation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The North Quadrangle was not designed as a whole, but is the irregular product of a series of buildings built since the college’s foundation.

The college cook, Thomas Clarke, built a college kitchen in 1612 with residential rooms above. The college bought this building, just north of the hall, from Clarke in 1620 and expanded it in 1642-1643 to produce the current Cook’s Building.

The first part of the Senior Common Room was built in 1676, immediately north of the chapel. Its ceiling, completed in 1742, features the craftsmanship of Thomas Roberts, who also worked on the Radcliffe Camera and the Codrington Library at All Souls’ College.

Various additions and renovations were made in 1826, 1900, 1936 and 2004-2005. The latest renovation and extension to the Grade I listed building were made in 1996 by MJP Architects and received two awards: the Design Partnership Award and an award from the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Dolphin Quadrangle is on the site of three houses that stood at 2-4 St Giles’ where they once formed the Dolphin Inn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Property was bought from Exeter College in 1742 and from 1794 to 1880 it was known as the Wood Buildings. It was replaced in 1880 when today’s St Giles’ range was built. What is today thought of as a single building was built as several distinct sections. The first part (1880-1881) consisted of the gate tower and the rooms between it and Cook’s building to the south. The second part, built in 1899-1900, forms the north half of the St Giles’ range. The Rawlinson Building (1909) formed the north side of the quad. More rooms were added by Edward Maufe in 1933.

With the completion of the Beehive (1958-1960), made up of irregular hexagonal rooms, the quad took on its current appearance. The Beehive was designed by Michael Powers of the Architects’ Co-Partnership and is clad in Portland stone. This east part of the quad previously held the old Fellows’ stables.

Dolphin Quadrangle is on the site of three houses that stood at 2-4 St Giles’ and formed the Dolphin Inn. When they were demolished in 1881, the houses were known as the South Buildings, and used as college accommodation. The college built the neo-Georgian Dolphin Quadrangle, designed by Edward Maufe, on the site in 1947-1948. There was a shortage of building materials in the aftermath of World War II, but the college built the new quadrangle with its own timber from Bagley Wood.

In the gardens in Saint John’s College, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Sir Thomas White Quadrangle or Thomas White Quad was built in 1972-1975. This is not so much a quadrangle, but an L-shaped building partially enclosing an area of garden. The upper floors are predominantly student residences, but the ground floor also has communal facilities including the college bar and the underground areas include the Games Room and Erg Room for rowing.

The Prestwich, Larkin and Graves rooms are multi-purpose rooms used for a variety of events.

The building is an early design by Philip Dowson of Arup Associates and won both the Concrete Society Award (1976) and the RIBA architectural excellence award (1981). It became a Grade II listed building in 2017.

Saint John’s College now owns almost all the buildings on the east side of St Giles’, including the Lamb and Flag (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Garden Quadrangle is a modern (1993) neo-Italianate design from MJP Architects that includes the college auditorium, student rooms and kitchens. The complex structure is very unlike a conventional quadrangle. It won five architectural awards in 1994-1995, and an Oxford Times poll in 2003 it was voted the best building built in Oxford in the preceding 75 years.

The site was previously occupied by the Department of Agriculture, and the Parks Road frontage of this building survives today, separated from the quad by a detached building with three music rooms.

The Kendrew Quadrangle, the most recent quad, was completed in 2010, and was also designed by MJP architects. The quad is named after Sir John Kendrew, former president of the college, Nobel Laureate and the college’s greatest benefactor in the 20th century. The construction has been dubbed ‘the last great quad in the city centre’ and is notable for its attempt to provide energy from sustainable sources.

As the first phase of the Kendrew Quadrangle project, Dunthorne Parker Architects were commissioned to refurbish three Grade II Listed buildings fronting on to St Giles’. Works were carried out to No 20 St Giles, which became alumni residential accommodation, the Black Hall, a 17th-century building that became teaching accommodation and the Barn, which became an exhibition and performance space.

St Giles’ House at No 16 has been described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘the best house of its date in Oxford’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The college now owns almost all the buildings on the east side of St Giles’. They include the Lamb and Flag pub, which the college once used to fund graduate scholarships, and Middleton Hall, north of the North Quad and beside the Lamb and Flag.

St Giles’ House at No 16 dates from 1702, and has been described by the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘the best house of its date in Oxford’. It was previously known as the Judge’s Lodgings, because it was used from 1852 to 1965 by judges visiting for Assizes. Today it is used for college dinners and receptions, and the upper levels include rooms for tutors.

The college also owns a stretch of the west side of St Giles’, including – until its sale in 2023 – the Eagle and Child pub. It was previously owned by University College and was known as the place where JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and their literary circle known as the Inklings once met. It has been undergoing a refurbishment porject for many months now.

Saint John’s College porperty portfolio the west side of St Giles’ once included the Eagle and Child pub (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint John’s offers on-site accommodation to undergraduates during their time at the college. This includes accommodation in the Thomas White Quad, the Beehive, and college-owned houses on Museum Road, with some postgraduates in Blackhall Road.

Saint John’s College Boat Club (SJCBC) is the largest of a number of college sports clubs.

Prominent fellows and alumni of Saint John’s have included two 17th-century Archbishops of Canterbury, William Laud and William Juxon, the poets AE Housman, Philip Larkin and Robert Graves, the novelist Kingsley Amis, the historian Peter Burke, the biochemist Sir John Kendrew, and the former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

After more than four centuries of the college being a male-only institution, women were first admitted as students in 1979. Elizabeth Fallaize was the first woman to become a fellow of Saint John’s in 1990.

Saint John’s maintains the largest endowment of the Oxford colleges, and these include the Oxford Playhouse building and the Millwall FC training ground. Students occupied the front quad for five days in January 2020 to protest against the endowment fund’s continued investments in fossil fuels.

The current President of Saint John’s is Baroness Black of Strome (Professor Dame Sue Black), a Scottish forensic anthropologist known for her work on identification in criminal convictions.

Richard Baylie (1585-1667) was twice President of Saint John’s College, in 1633-1648 and 1660-1667 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)