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St Giles, Northampton, Northamptonshire

Location
(52°14′14″N, 0°53′23″W)
Northampton
SP 759 605
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Northamptonshire
now Northamptonshire
medieval St Giles
now St Giles
  • Ron Baxter

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Description

The church of St Giles is a large cruciform building with a crossing tower. The tower is 12thc. in its lower parts and has crossing arches to E and W only. To the N and S are plain walls now; the arches were blocked after the upper part of the tower collapsed in 1613. Rebuilding was from 1616, and included the E bays of the N nave arcade and the clerestorey as well as the tower. The aisled and clerestoreyed nave has arcades of five bays, the three E bays originally 14thc. (and still 14thc. on the S), the two western ones added in 1853-55, when the 12thc. W doorway was reset. The nave aisles extend E alongside the tower, replacing the 12thc. transepts. On the N side of the nave an extra aisle, a bay shorter than the main aisles, was added in the 19thc. The present chapel contains 13thc. lancets in the N and S walls, and is offset slightly to the N from the line of the nave and crossing. It has N and S chapels, both 14thc. The 1853-55 work is by E. F. Law, following a report of 1840 by G. G. Scott. The N transept now contains lavatories and a crèche. Romanesque work is found in the two arches of the crossing and the reset W doorway. The crossing arches were unblocked in 1853-55 and rebuilt on the basis of the remains of the E arch, but the present author has identified no 12thc. work in either arch. They are described below on the assumption that they are a fair copy of at least part of what was there before.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Interior Features

Arches

Tower/Transept arches
Bibliography

Victoria County History: Northamptonshire, III (1930).

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, Harmondsworth, 1961, rev. by B. Cherry, 1973, 319f.

R. M. Serjeantson, A History of the Church of St Giles Northampton, Northampton, 1911.