Bloomsbury (London, England) -- Description and travel; Holborn (London, England) -- Description and travel
The Church of St. Giles at present standing is certainly the third, if
not the fourth, which has been upon the same site. As mentioned above,
there is reason to believe from Henry II.'s charter that a sacred
building of some sort stood here before the leper chapel. The chapel had
a chapter-house attached, and seems to have been a well-cared-for
building. There were several chantry chapels and a high altar dedicated
to St. Giles. St. Giles's in the earlier charters is spoken of as a
village, not a parish, but there is little doubt that after the
establishment of the hospital its chapel was used as a parish church by
the villagers. There was probably a wall screening off the lepers. The
first church of which any illustration is preserved has a curious
tower, capped by a round dome. The view of this church, dated 1560, is
taken after the dissolution of the hospital, when it had become entirely
parochial. In 1617 the quaint old tower was taken down, and replaced by
another, but only six years after the whole church was rebuilt. A view
of this in 1718 gives a very long battlemented body in two stories, with
a square tower surmounted by an open belfry and vane. It possessed
remarkably fine stained-glass windows and a handsome screen presented by
the Duchess of Dudley.
This second church did not last very long, for in Queen Anne's reign the
parishioners petitioned that it should be rebuilt as one of the fifty
new churches, being then in a state of decay. The present church, which
is very solid, and has dignity of outline, was the work of Flitcroft,
and was opened April 14, 1734. The steeple is 160 feet high, with a
rustic pedestal, a Doric story, an octagonal tower, and spire. The
basement is of rusticated Portland stone, of which the church is built,
and quoins of the same material decorate the windows and angles within.
It follows the lines of the period, with hardly any chancel, wide
galleries on three sides standing on piers, from which columns rise to
the elliptical ceiling. The part of the roof over the galleries is
bayed at right angles to the curve of the central part. Monuments hang
on the walls and columns, and occupy every available space. By far the
most striking of these is the full-length figure of a woman in repose
which is set on a broad window-seat. This is the monument of Lady
Frances Kniveton, daughter of Alice Leigh, Duchess of Dudley. The
daughter's tomb remains a memorial of her mother's benefactions to the
parish. The monument of Andrew Marvell, a plain black marble slab, is on
the north wall. Marvell was buried in the church "under the pews in the
south side," but the present monument was not erected until 1764,
eighty-six years after his death, owing to the opposition of the
incumbent of the church. The inscription on it slightly varies from that
intended for the original monument. Besides a handsome brass cross on
the chancel floor to the Rector, Canon Nisbett, a tomb in form of a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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