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Saint Giles' Church,
Cheadle, Staffordshire.
Photo: 22 November 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The more public part of the Consecration took place on the following morning, Tuesday, 1 September 1846 - Saint Giles' Day - when spectators gathered from miles around, into the Streets of Cheadle, to witness sights and sounds not experienced since The Reformation: The Procession of ten Catholic Bishops and two Archbishops in full Pontifical Robes.
The Rood-Screen,
Saint Giles Church,
Cheadle, Staffordshire,
England.
Photo: 25 September 2010.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Saint Giles Church is a Roman Catholic Church in the town of
Cheadle, Staffordshire, England. The Grade I
Listed Church was designed by
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.
The history of Saint Giles' begins with the establishment of a Catholic Mission, in Cheadle, by Father William Wareing, a future
Bishop of Northampton. He was an Assistant to Father Thomas Baddeley, at
Cresswell, Staffordshire, and, in the Early-1820s, he opened a small Chapel in a private house in Charles Street, Cheadle. Among those attending Mass there was Charles,
Earl of Shrewsbury, when he stayed at
Alton Abbey without his Chaplain.
As Father Wareing's efforts bore fruit, the room became inadequate for the growing numbers, and Lord Shrewsbury asked him to look for larger premises. Eventually, he obtained, on the Earls' behalf, a building about 60 feet (18 m) in length, which had been built as an
Armoury for the local
Militia during The
Napoleonic Wars, and the adjoining
Adjutant's House. This was converted into the new Chapel, and the first resident Priest was Father James Jeffries, appointed in 1827. In the same year, the fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury died and was succeeded by his nephew,
John Talbot, as the sixteenth Earl. Earl John made Alton Abbey his principal Residence and renamed it "
Alton Towers".
The North-East
Side-Chapel,
Photo: 25 September 2010.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Earl was zealous in promoting the Catholic cause, following The
1829 Emancipation Act, and it was he who first bought Pugin to
North Staffordshire in the Autumn of 1837, initially as an architect and interior designer at the Towers. Convinced that Pugin was the greatest acquisition the Church had made for some time, the Earl soon resolved that he would make financial contributions only to Churches designed by Pugin and built under his supervision. As the Earl's architect, Pugin paid frequent, and sometimes lengthy, visits to Alton Towers - a convenient base from which to supervise progress on his various buildings in The Midlands.
Saint Giles' was vastly different in concept and design from the mean-looking Chapels - such as the converted Armoury in Cheadle - in which Catholics were accustomed to Worship under The Toleration Act; different, too, from the fashionable City Chapels, such as that in
Warwick Street, London, where the Talbot family Worshipped when in London. Both kinds were, according to Pugin, wholly unfit for their purpose.
At Saint Giles', Pugin was able to further develop ideas from the recently-completed Saint Mary's Church, in
Uttoxeter, through the assistance of generous funding promised by Lord Shrewsbury.
The site for Saint Giles' was marked out by Pugin in 1841, and the Church was aligned in such a way to obtain the best possible effect from the Street. This meant modifying the Traditional East-West alignment and placing The West End close to the frontage of Bank Street, to allow the full height of the Tower and Spire to be seen from the junction of Cross Street and High Street, where the remains of the Mediaeval
Market Cross still stand.
The Spire,
Saint Giles' Church,
Cheadle, Staffordshire,
England.
Photo: 25 September 2010.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Pugin also referred to Saint Giles' as "my consolation in all afflictions", and there is no doubt that the freedom from restrictions, the resources available to him at Cheadle, and the enthusiastic support of Lord Shrewsbury, compensated somewhat for the professional and personal disappointments he encountered elsewhere. He had suffered under the constraints imposed by Church-Building Committees, the indifference of many Clergy to his dreams of a Gothic England, and the death, in 1844, of his second wife, Louisa.
That Saint Giles' increased in size and splendour, as the work progressed, was not just the result of Pugin's own enthusiasm for the project and his ability to prise additional sums of money from a reluctant patron. Lord Shrewsbury was himself committed to the promotion of the Revived Gothic as a means of winning Souls, and several of the alterations and additions at Cheadle were suggested by the Earl, himself.
The infinite care which Pugin took over Saint Giles' is reflected in his wide-ranging search for what he called "authorities" (Mediaeval precedents), for what he proposed. In 1840, he made a tour of what he called "the very cream" of
Norfolk Churches, in the course of preparation of his designs for Cheadle, drawing details of Mouldings, Tracery patterns and Canopy work. His sketchbook from the tour survives in The
Victoria and Albert Museum. East Anglican Porches were Pugin's source of inspiration for the Stone-Vaulted South Porch of Saint Giles'. He studied surviving
Rood-Screens in Norfolk, and the one at
Castle Acre appears to have been particular favoured in his preparations for the Cheadle Screen.
The South-East
Side-Chapel,
Photo: 25 September 2010.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Not all of Pugin's authorities were English, however.
Gothic was an international language with local and national dialects. On a visit to
Antwerp, in 1843, Pugin hoped to find "glorious details for the Cheadle Windows" and "the most beautiful authorities for Painted Details at Cheadle, above all". In May 1844, Pugin visited the recently-restored
Sainte-Chapelle, in
Île de la Cité, Paris, a richly-decorated Private Chapel built for
King Louis IX in the Mid-13th-Century.
Great care was taken over the selection of the building materials, which came principally from local sources. There was an abundance of
Oak and
Elm on Lord Shrewsbury's Alton Estate, and local quarries produced
Sandstones of various colours and textures. A new quarry, for Red and White Sandstone was opened at Counslow Hill, between Cheadle and Alton, and from there came the Stone for both Saint Giles' and for the complex of buildings which Pugin and Earl Shrewsbury were developing in Alton Village, namely Alton Castle and the Hospital of Saint John the Baptist.
It appears that Lord Shrewsbury, himself, suggested that
Alabaster should be used for the Altars, at Cheadle, and Saint John's, Alton. It carved beautifully and took fine detail, and, in Pre-
Reformation times, had been used extensively for statuary and ornamental work. There were local Alabaster mines at Fauld, near
Tutbury, but, instead of being quarried in blocks, the material was simply being blasted out, before being ground up to make
gypsum, the principal ingredient for
Plaster-of-Paris.
The Great West Door,
Photo: 25 September 2010.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
A North Porch was added, the South Aisle was extended Eastwards to form The Blessed Sacrament Chapel, The Lady Chapel was moved over to the North Aisle, and the proposed Chapel of Saint John was scrapped altogether. The
Sacristy was extended, and the "Rector's Door" on the South Side of The
Chancel - planned originally to communicate with the Priest's House - became superfluous when the location of the
Presbytery was moved North-East into Chapel Street.
It is a commonly held fallacy that the prime functions of the Nave and Aisles of a Church are to seat as many people as possible. That had certainly not been the case in Mediaeval times, when the Nave and Aisles were regarded, not as an Auditorium filled with a static body of people in fixed seats, but as a Liturgical space in which there was movement and drama (for example, the Festal Processions on High Days and Holy Days, and the Penitential Processions in
Lent).
Though benches were not uncommon in Mediaeval times, fixed seating, as a generality, came about only after the Reformation, and the arrangements in Early-19th-Century Catholic Chapels were little different from those of
Non-Conformist ones, with seating often running right across the width of the building, and with Galleries to provide extra accommodation. Pugin would have no such "Protestantisms" at Cheadle. When Lord Shrewsbury proposed to fill Saint Giles' with seats running the full width of the Nave, without so much as a central passage, Pugin reacted with characteristic indignation.
Saint Giles' Church
is a Grade I Listed
Roman Catholic Church, designed by Pugin.
Photo: 22 November 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The care which Pugin took over the design of the Rood-Screen for Cheadle was exceptional, and he was passionate over the necessity of Screens, in general. The joiners began work in February 1842, and Pugin promised that it would be "the richest yet produced". All went well until, in order to cut costs, Lord Shrewsbury proposed to dispense with the services of an expert wood-carver. The Screen could be finished, instead, by one of his own Estate joiners, Thomas Harris, who had already produced carvings at Alton Towers' Chapel and at Saint John's in Alton. Pugin responded in half-joking fashion, accusing the Earl of penny-pinching, and heading his Letter with sketches of a Rood-Screen and a block of cheese marked "2d 1/2" a pound. It is not known if the joiner returned.
Pugin experienced great difficulty in finding
Stained-Glass artists able to make Windows to his complete satisfaction, and at the right price. The process involved the working-up of Pugin's drawings into full-sized
cartoons, and the production of accurate colours by fusing various pigments onto the glass in a kiln at controlled temperatures. For the Cheadle Windows, he employed
William Wailes, of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. With the exception of the figure of Saint Giles, in the South Aisle, which he had altered at his own expense, Pugin was generally pleased with Wailes' efforts, noting that some of his best craftsmen had gone to
Normandy to make special studies of Old-Style Glass.
Pugin believed that, after Stained-Glass,
Encaustic Tiles were amongst the most important forms of decorative art. By the Winter of 1843, Pugin was able to tell Lord Shrewsbury that the Tiles, for Cheadle, were proceeding well and that they would have "the finest floor in Europe".
Richly-decorated Interior
of Saint Giles' Church,
Cheadle, Staffordshire.
Photo: 22 November 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Tiles for the Chancel, and The Chapel of The Blessed Sacrament, were both rich and expensive. Lord Shrewsbury was concerned that they would be damaged by being constantly walked upon, so he suggested putting down carpets, which, in Pugin's view, defeated the object of Tiles at all. The
Clerk of Works, John Denny, suggested a solution: The Priest and his Assistants would be required to wear special Cloth Overshoes. Lord Shrewsbury warmed to the idea and told Pugin: "You may have your Tiles and we shall want no carpet."
The date for the Consecration of Saint Giles' Church was fixed originally for September 1845, but, with the various alterations, this proved to be overly optimistic. Pugin noted that the Spire was "topped out" on 27 June 1845, but the Bells did not arrive until January 1846. The Bell inscriptions, in Gothic Lettering, included Invocations to
Our Lady, Saint Giles,
Saint Chad and
Saint Francis.
The Consecration of the Church was postponed for twelve Months, but, by March 1846, Pugin could not guarantee even that, unless Lord Shrewsbury would allow him to keep a full work-force, including joiners and painters. Of particular concern were The Great Crucifix and carved figures for The Rood-Screen, which were being made by
George Myers, at
Lambeth, London. The loss of the sculptor Thomas Roddis, who died in October 1845, was another sad blow, for, although Roddis had completed his works at Saint Giles' by this time, his contribution to the building was substantial and of superb quality.
Magnificent Pugin-designed Sedilia
in Saint Giles' Church,
Cheadle, Staffordshire.
Photo: 22 November 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Consecration of Saint. Giles' Church was spread over two days: Monday 31 August and Tuesday 1 September 1846. Pugin was much involved in the ceremonial preparations and also with practical arrangements for getting guests into the Church.
Cheadle was not served directly by Rail, with the nearest Railway Station being
Stafford, and then transport by horse and carriage. The Consecration on 31 August 1846 was essentially a private affair, in which the building, its furnishings and ornaments were Solemnly Blessed by
Bishop Wiseman, culminating in a High Mass. In the evening, Lord Shrewsbury entertained a party of fifty-four distinguished guests to a dinner at Alton Towers. The more public part of the Consecration took place the following morning - Saint Giles' Day - when spectators gathered from miles around, into the Streets of Cheadle, to witness sights and sounds not experienced since The Reformation: The Procession of ten Catholic Bishops and two Archbishops in full
Pontifical Robes.
The Nave, Rood-Screen,
and Pulpit,
Saint Giles' Church,
Cheadle, Staffordshire.
Photo: 22 November 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The importance of Saint Giles' Church lies in the fact that everything about it is the product of one brilliant mind. Pugin understood all the principles of Gothic art and architecture and knew how to apply them.
His busy schedule allowed time for Daily Mass, as well as Morning and Evening Prayers at home, and he regarded himself first, and foremost, as a Servant of The Church, as "a builder-up of men's minds and ideas, as well as material edifices".
It is this which distinguishes Pugin as the principal architect of The
Gothic Revival, and Saint Giles' Church as the perfect expression of what he believed an English Church should be.
The Bells of Saint Giles' Church, Cheadle, ring weekly to Celebrate Mass, on either a Saturday Evening (16:30-17:00) or Sunday Morning (10:00-10:30). Bell-Ringing practice takes place on a Tuesday Evening.
Stations of The Cross in
Saint Giles' Church,
Cheadle, Staffordshire.
Photo: 22 November 2014.
Source: Own work.
(Wikimedia Commons)
