St Giles in the Fields

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address = London
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St Giles in the Fields is a church in the Borough of Camden, in the heart of London, England's West End, close to the Centre Point skyscraper and Tottenham Court Road tube station.

St Giles in the Fields is part of the Diocese of London within the Church of England. Several buildings have stood on the site; the present structure (in the Palladian style) was built in 1734.

Medieval church

The first recorded church on this site was a chapel attached to a monastery and leper hospital founded by Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I, in 1101 [http://www.stgilesonline.org/heritage-resources/history.php St Giles in the Fields: History] ] [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22122 British History Online] 'Religious Houses: Hospitals', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1: Physique, Archaeology, Domesday, Ecclesiastical Organization, The Jews, Religious Houses, Education of Working Classes to 1870, Private Education from Sixteenth Century (1969), pp. 204-212. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22122. Date accessed: 03 January 2008.] . At that time, it stood well outside the boundaries of the city of London, though on the main road to Tyburn and Oxford. This chapel probably came to function as the church of the small village that grew up to service the hospital.

The hospital was supported by the Crown (it was named a royal free chapel) and administered by the City for its first 200 years; from 1299 it was administered by the Order of Saint Lazarus, on the order of Edward I. The 14th century was a turbulent one for the hospital, with frequent accusations from the City authorities that the Lazar brothers put the affairs of the monastery ahead of caring for the lepers. Throughout the century, the king on several occasions interfered by appointing a new head of the hospital.

In 1391, Richard II sold the hospital, chapel and lands to the Cistercian abbey of St. Mary Graces, an action opposed by both the Lazars (with armed force!) and the City authorities (by withholding rent money). The property at the time included convert|8|acre|m2 of farmland; a survey enumerated 8 horses, 12 oxen, 2 cows, 156 pigs, 60 geese, and 186 domestic fowl. The grant was revoked in 1402 and the property returned to the Lazars. Lepers continued to be cared for until the mid 16th century, when the disease died down and the monastery instead began to care for any indigent paupers.

During the reign of Henry V, the village was the headquarters of Sir John Oldcastle's abortive Lollard rebellion in 1414, and the site of his subsequent execution in 1417.

The monastery was dissolved in 1539 during the reign of Henry VIII, with the lands (excluding the church) eventually being granted to Lord Lisle in 1548. However, the chapel survived as a local parish church. The first Rector of St Giles was appointed in 1547 and the phrase 'in the fields' added to the church's name. An illustration from this time shows the church with a round tower and dome. A spire replaced this structure in 1617.

17th century church

The early church fell into disrepair and a Gothic brick structure was built between 1623 and 1630, mostly paid for by Alice Dudley, wife of Robert Dudley. The new building was consecrated by William Laud, Bishop of London. An illuminated manuscript listing the subscribers to the rebuilding, is still kept in the church.

The first victims of the 1665 Great Plague were buried in St. Giles's churchyard and by the end of the plague year there were 3,216 listed plague deaths in this church's parish, which had fewer than 2,000 households.

Other notable burials of the period include twelve Roman Catholic martyrs (killed on the testimony of Titus Oates), who were later beatified, and are buried 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 five Jesuit fathers with whom Plunkett asked to be buried
**Thomas Whitbread [ [http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0620.htm#thom Saints O'the Day, June 20] ] , William Harcourt, John Fenwick, John Gavan and Anthony Turner
*Edward Coleman (or Colman), secretary to the Duchess of York
*Richard Langhorne, barrister [ [http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0714.htm#rich Saints O'the Day, July 14] ]
*Edward Micó, priest (died soon after arrest; the only one of the twelve not to be executed at Tyburn)
*William Ireland, priest
*John Grove, priest [ [http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0124.htm#john Saints O'the Day, January 24] ]
*Thomas Pickering, laybrother [ [http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0509.htm#thom Saints O'the Day, May 9] ]

Present church

The high number of plague victims buried in the church and its yard were the probable cause of the damp problem evident by 1711. The parishioners petitioned the Church Commissioners for a grant to rebuild. 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). The model he made so that parishioners could see what they were commissioning, can still be seen in the church's north transept. The Vestry House was built at the same time.

As London grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, so did the parish's population, to 30,000 by 1831. The parish included within its boundaries two neighbourhoods notorious for poverty and squalour: the Rookery between the church and Great Russell Street, and Seven Dials. These neighbourhoods became a centre for prostitution and crime and the name St Giles became likewise associated with the underworld. St Giles's Roundhouse was a jail and St Giles' Greek a thieves' cant. St Giles was also the last church on the route between Newgate Prison and the gallows at Tyburn, and the churchwardens paid for the condemned to have a drink (popularly named "St Giles' Bowl") at the next door pub, the Angel, before they went to be hanged, a custom that had started in the early 15th century. The dissolute nature of the area is described in Charles Dickens' "Sketches by Boz".

The architects Sir Arthur Blomfield and William Butterfield made some alterations in 1875 and 1896. St Giles escaped severe bombing in the Second World War, losing only most of the Victorian glass. The church underwent a major restoration in 1952–53, described by journalist and poet John Betjeman as "one of the most successful post-war church restorations" ("Spectator" 9 Mar. 1956). The parish today sits in the middle of a commercial district, and the resident population is about 4,600.

Items of interest

Organ

The first seventeenth-century organ was destroyed during the English Civil War. George Dallam built a replacement in 1678; the instrument was rebuilt in 1699 by Christian Smith, a nephew of the great organ builder 'Father' Smith. A second rebuilding (in the new structure) was done in 1734 by Gerard Smith the younger, possibly assisted by Johann Knopple. Much of the pipework from 1678 and 1699 was recycled.

The final rebuilding, still recycling the original pipes, was done in 1856 by the London organ builders Gray and Davison, then at the height of their fame. The mechanical key and stop actions were replaced with an electro-pneumatic action in 1960, and the organ was extensively restored in 2006 by WIlliam Drake.

Tombs

St Giles is known as 'The Poets' Church'. Poet John Milton's daughter Mary was baptised in the Gothic brick building in 1647 and the Poetry Society holds its annual general meeting in the vestry house. Two memorials inside the church commemorate George Chapman, the translator of Homer (buried outside) and politician and poet Andrew Marvell.

Other famous people with memorials in St Giles include:
*Richard Penderell, who accompanied king Charles II on his famous escape
*Lord Belasyse, a noted 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.

Recent memorials commemorate:
*Cecilius Calvert, the first Proprietor of the Maryland colony in 1633 (some of the colonists were from St Giles' parish). His memorial was unveiled on 10 May 1996 by the Governor of Maryland, Parris N. Glendening. Calvert's son and daughters-in-law are buried at St Giles.
*William Balmain, one of the founders of New South Wales and Principal Surgeon of the Colony. His memorial on the north-west wall was put up by the Balmain Society of Sydney in 1996.

Other

The wooden pulpit on the north side of the church is from the nearby (now no longer a church) West Street Chapel and is the same pulpit from which Methodist founders John and Charles Wesley preached between 1741 and 1793.

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

Two thrones sit in the church; one is the mayoral chair of the Borough of Holborn (St Giles was the municipal church of this borough until the 1960s) and the other is carved with the Italian words 'Che sara, sara' (whatever shall be, shall be).

Musical References

Australian band The Tenth Stage wrote a song titled "St Giles In The Fields (Ad 1665)" in reference to this location, on their eponymous debut CD in 2006. The song makes reference to the "plague" and is a lyrical representation of the unfortunate occurrences during the Great Plague in 1665.

Rectors of St Giles

External links

* [http://www.stgilesonline.org/ Church's own site]

References