St Giles in the Fields

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Coordinates: 51°30′55.12″N, 00°07′43.08″W

St. Giles in the Fields is a church in the Borough of Camden, in the heart of London's West End, in the shadow of Centre Point in WC2. It sits under the shadow of the 1960s Centrepoint skyscraper, one minute's walk from Tottenham Court Road tube station. Its situation in a busy part of London is ironic considering its patron, St. Giles, was a 7th century saint who spent most of his life seeking solitude and contemplation.

The present structure was built in the Palladian style in 1734. Its present approach is largely evangelical, using the Book of Common Prayer. The congregation has shown suspicion as to the possible Anglo-Catholic overtones of adding a candlestand at the back of the church.[1]

Contents 1 Previous structures 1.1 Medieval church 1.2 1623 2 Present structure 3 Items of interest 3.1 Organ 3.2 Tombs 3.3 Other 4 Rectors of St Giles 5 External links 6 References

[edit] Previous structures

[edit] Medieval church

The first recorded church on this site was the chapel attached to a monastery and leper hospital, founded by Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I, in 1101. At that time, it would have lain well outside the boundaries of the city of London, though on the main road to Tyburn and Oxford beyond. This chapel probably became the church of a small village that grew up to service the hospital, with the lepers screened off. During the reign of Henry V, the area was the site chosen by the Lollard Sir John Oldcastle for his raising of an abortive rebellion, and then the site of his subsequent execution.

The associated monastery was dissolved during the reign of Henry VIII, but the chapel survived as a local parish church, and in 1547 the first rector was appointed and the phrase 'in the fields' added to the church's name. The first Rector of St Giles was appointed in 1547.

The earliest illustration shows this church with a round tower, capped by a dome - which was replaced by a larger spire in 1617.

[edit] 1623

Shortly afterwards the church was considered ruinous and a Gothic brick building was built between 1623 and 1630. This was largely paid for by Alice, Duchess Dudley, wife of Robert Dudley and consecrated by William Laud, then Bishop of London. The church still has an illuminated manuscript listing the subscribers to this rebuilding, known as the Doomsday Book. John Milton's daughter Mary was baptised in this building in 1647.

Twelve Roman Catholic martyrs (killed on the testimony of Titus Oates) who were later beatified, were buried in the church's graveyard (near the church's north wall):

• Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, burial (according to the parish Burial Register) on 1 July, 1681, canonised in 1975 (he was later exhumed and taken to Lamspringe in Germany, with the head being now at Drogheda and the body at Downside)
• the Jesuit fathers with whom Plunkett asked to be buried
  • Thomas Whitbread, priest[2]
  • William Harcourt, priest
  • John Fenwick, priest
  • John Gavan, priest
  • Anthony Turner, priest
• Edward Coleman (or Colman), secretary to the Duchess of York
• Richard Langhorne, barrister [3]
• Edward Micó, priest (died soon after arrest - only one of the twelve not to be executed at Tyburn)
• William Ireland, priest
• John Grove, priest [4]
• Thomas Pickering, laybrother[5]

[edit] Present structure

The first victims of the 1665 Great Plague were buried in this church's churchyard and by the end of the plague year there were 3216 listed plague deaths in this church's parish, out of its less than 2000 households at the time. Indeed, the high number of victims buried in the church and its yard were the probable cause of the damp which - less than a century after the last rebuild - left the church was in an unusable condition. The parishoners petitioned the Church Commissioners for a grant to rebuild the church. Initially refused because it was not a new foundation, they were eventually allocated £8,000 and a new church was built in 1730-34, designed by the architect Henry Flitcroft in the Palladian style (the first English church in that style). Flitcroft had already assisted Lord Burlington in building Burlington House in Piccadilly (now the Royal Academy) and Chiswick House, and went on to design Woburn Abbey, the seat of the Dukes of Bedford, one of the principal landowners in this part of London. The model he made so that parishioners could see what they were commissioning, can still be seen in the church's north transept. At the same time the elegant Vestry House was built, for meetings of the Vestry, the council of laypeople and clergy who managed parish affairs.

With the expansion of London in this period, the parish's population grew enormously in the 18th and 19th centuries, exceeding 30,000 by 1831. The "rookeries" between the church and Great Russell Street, and the area called Seven Dials, were amongst the most notorious in London for poverty and squalour, and were a centre for prostitution and crime (the area had its own lock-up, St Giles's Roundhouse and even spawned its own thieves' cant, St Giles' Greek). Saint Giles was also the last church on the route from the Newgate Prison to the gallows at Tyburn, and the Churchwardens paid for the condemned to have a drink at the next door pub, the Angel, before they went to be hanged. The dissolute nature of the area is evocatively captured in Charles Dickens' Sketches by Boz.

The distinguished architects Sir Arthur Blomfield and William Butterfield made modest alterations in 1875 and 1896. St Giles escaped the severe damage in the bombing in the Second World War, which merely removed most of the Victorian glass. The church underwent a major restoration in 1952-53, described by John Betjeman as:

"One of the most successful post-war church restorations…" ('The Spectator' March 9th 1956)

Since the 1950s the area has changed enormously, with the loss of small shops and houses in St Giles' High Street and the construction of the massive St Giles Court and Centre Point. The resident population is now about 4,600, and the church and churchyard have become an oasis of calm and contemplation in the midst of a vibrant commercial and cultural district.

[edit] Items of interest

[edit] Organ

At the back of the balcony is the site of the organ (currently in the West Country for restoration). This organ was rebuilt in the new church by Gerard Smith the younger by recycling a good deal of the pipework from the 1678 organ built by George Dallam (rebuilt in 1699 by Christian Smith). The organ dates mainly from the 18th century. There was a major restoration in 1856, and another large restoration in 2006 by William Drake. It is an important and imposing instrument.

The 17th century organ of St Giles was destroyed during the Civil War, with a replacement being built in 1678 by George Dallam and 'repaired' in 1699 by Christian Smith, a nephew of the great organ builder 'Father' Smith.

This organ was rebuilt in the present church in 1734 by Gerard Smith the younger, possibly assisted by Johann Knopple. Much pipework from 1699, and perhaps some from 1678, survives today in the handsome new case made in 1734.

Minor alterations were subsequently made to the organ, but it has only once been rebuilt, in 1856, when it was restored and up-dated by the distinguished London organ builders Gray and Davison, then at the height of their fame. Apart from replacing the the mechanical key and stop actions with an electro-pneumatic action in 1960, which is now defective, the organ is much as it was in the mid-nineteenth century. It is one of the few historic organs in central London to have escaped twentieth century 'modernisation'.

[edit] Tombs

The 75 volumes of the parish registers also carry many entries concerning the great and the good (and the not so good - There are few remaining tombstones in the churchyard, but there are many memorials inside the church.  :

• The church's connections with writers, including these 2 memorials, have led to the epithet of 'The Poets' Church', and the Poetry Society hold its AGM in the vestry house:
  • George Chapman, the translater of Homer (buried outside - his memorial stone is now in the east end of the north aisle)
  • Andrew Marvell, politician and poet
• Richard Penderell, preserver and conductor of Charles II
• Lord Belasyse, royalist
• Sir Roger L'Estrange, the last public censor
• John Flaxman, sculptor
• Luke Hansard, printer to the House of Commons
• Thomas Earnshaw, watch and chronometer maker.
• the second Lord Baltimore and first proprietory of Maryland - A memorial was inaugurated in 1996 in the presence of the US Ambassador and unveiled by the Governor of Maryland.
• the church's American connections:
  • Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore and the first Proprietory of Maryland, fitted out the ships Ark and Dove which sailed with 200 adventurers, including some from St Giles' parish, in 1633. He did not travel with them, and adminstered the colony from England. He died in the parish in December 1675. A memorial to him was inaugurated in the church on 10 May 1996 in the presence of the United States Ambassador. It is on the west wall, under the gallery, and was unveiled by the Governor of Maryland, Parris N. Glendening.
  • Charles Calvert, third Lord Baltimore, was both Proprietory and Governor, spending much time in the colony, but he lost the authority to govern during the revolution of 1688 as he was a Roman Catholic. His daughter-in-law, Mrs Jane Calvert was buried at St Giles in May 1692, and his second wife, Jane, was buried at St Giles in January 1701. His third wife, Mary, was also buried at St Giles in March 1710.
• William Balmain, one of the founders of New South Wales and Principal Surgeon of the Colony, after whom a suburb of Sydney is named - A memorial to him was placed on the north-west wall, under the gallery, with the assistance of the Balmain Society of Sydney in 1996.

[edit] Other

Elsewhere in the church there are numerous items of interest. On the north side there is the wooden pulpit from the West Street Chapel from which John and Charles Wesley preached between 1741 and 1793 - this chapel was their headquarters. At the back of the church is the mayoral chair of the Borough of Holborn, of which St Giles was the municipal church until the re-organisation of the 1960s.

Other remarkable features include two paintings on either side of the altar by Francisco Vieira the Younger, court painter to the King of Portugal and a large throne at the top of the stairs to the organ balcony which intriguingly boasts the legend 'Che sara, sara' (whatever shall be, shall be).

[edit] Rectors of St Giles

Date	Name	Other/previous posts
1547	Sir William Rowlandson
1571	Geoffrey Evans
1579	William Steward
1590	Nathaniel Baxter
1591	Thomas Salisbury
1592	Joseph Clerk
1616	Roger Manwayring	Chaplain to James I, Dean of Worcester, Bishop of St David's
Undated	Gilbert Dillingham
1635	Brian Walton	Bishop of Chester
1636	William Heywood	Domestic Chaplain to Archbishop Laud, Chaplain to Charles I, Prebendary of St Paul's
English Commonwealth	Henry Cornish, Arthur Molyne and Thomas Case were "ministers" respectively of this church
1660	William Heywood	Returned on English Restoration
1663	Robert Boreman
1675	John Sharp	Archdeacon of Berkshire, Prebendary of Norwich, Chaplain to Charles II, Dean of Canterbury, Archbishop of York
1691	John Scott	Canon of Windsor (a royal peculiar)
1695	William Hayley	Dean of Chichester, Chaplain to William III
1715	William Baker	Bishop of Bangor, Bishop of Norwich
1732	Henry Gally	Chaplain to George II
1769	John Smyth	Prebendary of Norwich
1788	John Buckner	Bishop of Chichester
1824	Christopher Benson	Master of the Temple
1826	James Endell Tyler	Canon Residentiary of St Paul's
1851	Robert Bickersteth	Bishop of Ripon
1857	Antony Wilson Thorold	Bishop of Rochester, Bishop of Winchester
1867	John Marjoribanks Nisbet	Canon Residentiary of Norwich
1892	Henry William Parry Richards	Prebendary of St Paul's
1899	William Covington	Prebendary and Canon of St Paul's
1909	Wilfred Harold Davies
1929	Albert Henry Lloyd
1941	Ernest Reginald Moore
1949	Gordon Clifford Taylor
2000	William Mungo Jacob	Archdeacon of Charing Cross

[edit] External links

• Church's own site

[edit] References

• St, Giles' website