St. Giles Cripplegate

St. Giles Cripplegate was first mentioned in around 1100 but was probably established during the reign of King Cnut in the early 11^th century. Throughout the Middle Ages it stood outside the city wall at Cripple Gate, one of the lesser city gates. It was then a marshy area. The church was dedicated to St. Giles, patron saint of cripples and beggars, who was born in Greece in the 7^th century and lived as a hermit in France.

St. Giles stood outside Cripple Gate, as shown in Civitas Londinum (the ‘Agas map’) from about 1561.

The original building would have been made of wood. The first of substance was constructed in around 1090 by the master builder Alphune, a friend of Rahere, who founded the priory of St. Bartholomew at Smithfield. At the end of the 14^th century the area outside of Cripplegate was drained and the church rebuilt in the Gothic Perpendicular style. It was rebuilt again in 1545 following a fire. The tower was increased in height in the 1680s.

The parish of St. Giles suffered severely during the Great Plague of 1665, with 600 deaths in just one week in August, and 8,000 in total. The vicar was an absentee, so the number of deaths to be recorded and funerals taking place put a great strain on the curate, Thomas Luckayne, who was assisted by Nonconformist ministers. Several of the ministers themselves succumbed, as well as the parish clerk, the churchwardens, the sexton, and the doctor.

In the past, the parish of St. Giles lay partly within the City and partly within Middlesex. By the early 18^th century the number of parishioners was so great that the new church of St. Luke Old Street was built to relieve St. Giles, which was completed in 1733. St. Luke’s was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and John James and its construction funded by the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches. The old parish of was accordingly divided between St. Giles and St. James’s.

The Great Fire did not reach the area around St. Giles and in 1682 a brick tower and cupola were added. However, it was badly damaged by fire in 1897.

The parish of St. Giles, together with its church, was largely destroyed during the Second World War. The devastation exposed several sections of previously hidden Roman and medieval city wall, including three bastions, which remain in place close to the church for all to see.

Fortunately, the plans for the 16^th century rebuild of the church were held at Lambeth Palace, and it was restored by Godfrey Allen based on those, reopening in 1960.

Following the war the area was redeveloped by the City of London Corporation as the Barbican housing and cultural estate forming a new congregation. The immediate area around the church, previously hemmed in by other buildings, was opened out to become a paved plaza.

Despite the near-destruction in the Second World War, the pre-Great Fire Gothic tower, is largely intact. During the rebuilding after the war a wooden cupola was added. The walls are partly from the 14^th century. The interior is of the Perpendicular style, with north and south bays. The 18^th century organ, as well as the pews and altar, were brought from St. James Old Street.

The adventurer Martin Frobisher, one of Francis Drake’s captains during the Armada, was buried at St. Giles and there is a memorial to him. Also buried there were John Foxe, the author of The Book of Martyrs, and the poet John Milton in 1674. The writer Daniel Defoe was born in the parish. In 1620 Oliver Cromwell was married at St. Giles. There is a modern stained-glass window as a memorial to the parishioner Edward Alleyn, actor, impresario and contemporary of Shakespeare.

The parish of St. Giles now incorporates those of St. Barthlomew Moor Lane (opened in 1850 and demolished in 1902), St. Alphage London Wall (demolished in 1923), St. Mary Aldermanybury (destroyed in the Second World War) and St. Luke Old Street (closed as a church in 1959).