Photographs taken in 2016 by Rita Wood, with captions by Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one. Click on the thumbnails for larger pictures.]
Interior of St Giles, Cheadle, by A. W. N. Pugin (1812-1852). Left: Looking through the arcade into the north aisle. Right: Looking south into the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, with its Hardman screen, and its texts, both on the steps below and on the arch above. The one on the arch reads, "Adoremus in aeternum sacramentum sanctissimum" ("Let us forever adore the Most Holy Sacrament"). Father Michael Fisher writes: "In the north aisle the predominant colour is blue for Our Lady, while on the south red and gold complement the decor of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel" (185).
Left to right: (a) A view of the reredos (six angels flanking the coronation of the Virgin Mary), in relation to the east window. (b) Eduard Hauser's Easter Sepulchre painting in its context, on the north chancel wall. (c) The sedilia and piscina on the south wall of the chancel with angel roundels decorating the wall above. Father Fisher explains that "the dominant theme at St Giles' is the Holy Angels — in the wall-paintings and cornices, on the roof corbels, on the sedilia, and predominantly on the altar and reredos" (191).
Left to right: (a) Looking into the Blessed Sacrament chapel from the chancel. (b) Pugin-designed Minton tiling through to the Blessed Sacrament chapel. (c) A peep into the vestry on the south wall, a view illustrating nicely the various kinds of "intense patterning," in different mediums, found throughout the church (Hill 290). As for the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, this was greatly admired by St John Henry Newman: "I could not help saying to myself 'Porta Coeli' (Gate of Heaven)" (qtd. in Fisher 199).
Related Material
- St Giles' Church, Cheadle (Exterior)
- St Giles' Church, Cheadle (Interior)
- Stained Glass in St Giles'
Bibliography
Fisher, Michael. "Gothic For Ever": A. W. N. Pugin, Lord Shrewsbury, and the Rebuilding of Catholic England. Reading: Spire, 2012.
Hill, Rosemary. God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain. London: Penguin, 2007.
"Roman Catholic Church of St Giles." British Listed Buildings. Web. 7 February 2020.
Created 7 February 2020