Standlake : St Giles

Church founded 1228. Octagonal 14th Century tower with small spire. Late Perpendicular window in wall of south aisle. Nave windows with original wrought iron pitchfork stanchions thought to date back to early 1300s. Windows dedicated to the Virgin, St John the Evangelist and St Thomas the Martyr inserted in mid 14th Century in north walls of chancel and north transept. Nave clerestory added late 15th or early 16th century and roof pitch lowered. Clapton Rolfe was the architect for the late Victorian restoration with addition of carved angel figures in chancel and nave. Chancel restored and given new altar, stalls and stained glass. Elaborately carved font cover and pew ends by Hems. A ring of 6 bells, 3 dated 1709-10; treble added in 1887. Nave altar on semi-circular dais added 2013.

About this church

The 12th Century west wall with flat external buttresses remains; there may have been a large Norman tower within the area of the present nave. Blocked up arch on the eastern wall opened onto a small 13th century chapel. The 14th Century porch was rebuilt in 1880s using the original stonework.

The nave arcades are of considerable interest. The arches opening on to the transepts are late 13th century to the south, mid 14th to the north. The south arcade dates from the early 14th century, the north is mid 14th century.

The Victorian roof has ten carved angels with shields and is supported on original stone corbels, of which three pairs are heads, the western pair grotesques.

The pew ends portray thirty saints of the English calendar, starting with St Giles, opposite whom is the Virgin Mary.

The late 12th century chancel arch, a relic of the first known church, has a pair of corbels with scalloped capitals. The lancet windows are Early English from the first half of the 13th Century. The roof is supported on ten corbels representing angels musicians, and also carried eight carved wooden angels with musical instruments, carved by Hems in the Victorian restoration.

The west window contains all that remains of the church’s mediaeval glass and records the remodelling of the chancel in 1503.

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