The Church of St. Giles Cripplegate

 

At the Church of St. Giles Cripplegate

When planning my day out in the City of London, with my principal objective being to explore the London Wall, one of the places that I wanted to see was the church of St. Giles Cripplegate, which is one of the city's few remaining mediaeval churches.

 

The church of St. Giles Cripplegate

 

The Norman church of 1090 was built on the site of a Saxon church, about which very little is known, and the Historic England description of its construction history is surprisingly very sparse. According to the church website, although it escaped the Great Fire of London, it has been rebuilt in 1394, again in 1545 and 1897 after fires and was then damaged twice during the Blitz.

 

A general view of the north elevation

Interestingly, the rebuilding of the church by Godfrey Allen after the 1897 fire was based on the architectural drawings for the 1545 restoration, which were kept in Lambeth Palace. Although this Perpendicular Gothic styling reproduces the mediaeval detailing, the choice of Portland stone for the north aisle and clerestory, to my eye, clashes with the Kentish Rag seen in the east wall of the chancel and the tower.

 

The tower

 

In South Yorkshire, the underlying Carboniferous and Permian strata have been supplying stone to build churches of a similar age and to restore and rebuild them ever since. Their main archaeological interest is in the styles of masonry that have evolved over the years, from rubble to roughly squared and coursed and then fine ashlar walling, and it is not often that you see such sudden changes in the building materials used over the ages.

 

The C17 brick extension to the tower

 

The late C17 alterations to the tower in red brick further add to the clash of materials, but this highlights the fact that London is set on soft Tertiary rocks, which are unable to provide building stone and it relies solely on imported materials  – with the costs of quarrying and changes in fashion often influencing the material used.

 

Kentish rag used in the south elevation

Moving round to the south elevation, I was surprised to see the aisle and clerestory are built in Kentish Rag but, as with all of the historic buildings that I had encountered since starting my walk from Mansion House underground station, I didn’t closely look at it closely.

 

A view east along the nave

 

The church was closed to the general public but, taking advantage of a rehearsal that was being set up for a performance in the evening, I was able to have a very quick look at its interior and take a general set of photographs, which record its principal architectural features.

 

A view of the arcades

 

I didn’t have the time to examine any of the stonework but, looking at my photographs, I would say that the arcades are built in limestone, which in London – certainly for exteriors – is usually Portland stone but I would have to examine it closely to determine this.

 

A view along the south aisle

Apart from the arcades, the only exposed masonry that I could see was in the south-east part of the chancel, where a piscina and a sedilia are set into walling that is made of Kentish Rag and possibly Reigate Stone. Again, I didn’t have the opportunity to study it closely but I am assuming that the massive dressed stonework is a limestone, which could be Caen stone from France.

 

The piscina and the sedilia

 

The sedilia has been partly obscured by the raising of the chancel floor, which is now laid with a chequerboard pattern comprising white Carrara marble from Italy and black polished Carboniferous limestone, which is probably from Belgium.

 

A view along the nave from the chancel

Various statues and monuments are scattered around the church, with perhaps the most notable memorial being that to Sir Martin Frobisher, who is probably best known for his efforts to find the Northwest Passage and his part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

The memorial to Sir Martin Frobisher

I finished my very brief investigation of the church by having a quick look at the former churchyard, which has been absorbed into the surrounding Barbican Estate and now only has a square monument and half a dozen plain stone coffins as reminder of its former function.

 

Stone coffins in the old churchyard