Approaching St Giles. the impression given is that of a survivor. Surrounded by the Barbican development, the medieval church has endured several fires and one incendiary bombing. The surrounding area was shattered by the WW2 bombs and the Barbican rose from the ashes, but St Giles - after a Godfrey Allen restoration - carried on.
The original church may have been a Saxon chapel, but in 1090 one Alfune, Bishop of London, built a Norman church. The dedication to St Giles came later in the Middle Ages, but has nothing to do with Giles being the patron saint of cripples. The name Cripplegate comes from one of the many gates in the adjacent city wall, and is derived from the Saxon 'crepel/cruple', meaning a covered walkway. The church was rebuilt in Gothic Perpendicular style in 1394, at which time it was being used by a religious fraternity founded by John Belancer, and the style has been maintained throughout three destructive fires: one in 1545, another in 1897 and of course the incendiary bombs of 1940 which gutted the interior. For his post-War reconstruction, Allen used the actual plans for the 1545 restoration, which were being kept at Lambeth Palace.
St Giles seems deceptively small as one approaches, a consequence of its position in the centre of an uncluttered plaza, and the eye is drawn to its solid walls, repointed by the Victorians, and its red-brick tower with a white wooden turret. It has a great deal more character than the expensive flats which surround it, and as such seems to dominate the area despite being of less stature than its neighbours!
The interior is quiet and somewhat stately, thanks to the arcades separating the north and south aisles from the nave, and a leisurely stroll quickly reveals the church to be one that is very proud of its historical connections!
The most notable of these features is a collection of busts set on plinths, showing four famous parishioners. Daniel Defoe, government agent, pamphleteer, useless businessman and famous author, was born in the parish and worshipped here. Oliver Cromwell was married in the church, although the incumbent vicar lost his living at the Stuart Restoration. His name was Samuel Annesley, but his descendants had the last laugh - his daughter, Susannah Wesley, gave birth to a boy called John...
A third bust is that of John Bunyan, the Nonconformist preacher who spent twelve years in Bedford Jail for his beliefs and wrote 'The Pilgrims Progress', one of Puritan England's most popular and influential books. He was an occasional visitor to the church, and is buried close to Defoe in Bunhill Fields, a Dissenter's Cemetery in St Giles' parish, which also contains another famous local - the poet/painter William Blake, one of history's true eccentric geniuses.
The remaining bust is that of John Milton, author of Paradise Lost and a member of Cromwell's Council of State. Milton is the church's most famous interment; as well as the bust, there is a memorial in the south aisle and his burial place is marked near the chancel.
Another legendary poet with connections to St Giles is William Shakespeare. Two of his nephews were christened here, one was buried here, and interred here in 1634 was the grand-daughter of Sir Thomas Lucy, supposedly the basis of the comic 'Justice Shallow' in Henry IV Part II and The Merry Wives Of Windsor. Shakespeare's fellow actor and local benefactor Edward Alleyn is memorialised by a stained glass window - he was the proprieter of the Fortune Theatre which once stood close by. Buried here in 1623 was Nicholas Tooley, a fellow actor and one of the sponsors of the 'First Folio'.
Also buried in the body of the church are two eminent Elizabethans: John Foxe, the propagandist whose 'Book Of Martyrs' did absolutely nothing for the Catholic cause, and Sir Martin Frobisher, a mariner who fought against the Armada and attempted to locate the North-West Passage. Close by, and with a monument that has managed to survive the Victorian fire and the Luftwaffe bombs, is the seventeenth century cartographer and historian, John Speed. The Elizabethan author Thomas Deloney came to rest here in 1600, and was followed by the composer Giles Farnaby in 1640.
I'll round off St Giles' history with a couple of macabre but amusing anecdotes, the first of which is - hopefully! - a legend. A young gentlewoman named Constance Whitney was buried in the church during the 1600's. On the night of her funeral, a verger stole into the crypt to retrieve a ring which he had previously noticed adorning the deceased's finger. Attempting to cut off the finger, the verger was surprised (to say the least, one would think) when the woman woke up with a cry, jumped out of her coffin and ran home. I can't imagine the reaction of the housemaid when she answered the door being much better than that of the verger.
St Giles' historically unscrupulous vergers lead us to the second story, which seems to be true. During the 1790's, while repairs were being made to the chancel, the coffin of John Milton was exhumed. The enterprising verger opened it and put the great poet on public display, charging interested parties first 6d, later 2d, and finally the price of a pint for a peek. This led to his teeth, hair and one rib being purloined for souvenirs before he was reburied, and the contemporary poet William Cowper wrote, 'Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones, where Milton's ashes lay! That trembled not to grasp his bones, and steal his dust away!'
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