Default Image We do not have a
Photograph at present.
Image by courtesy of
openclipart.org

St Giles's Church,
Church Drive, NG10 5EE,
Sandiacre, Derbyshire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or had) a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded about 1160, and we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of 1932 describes St Giles's Church as "a building of stone, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave, south porch and a western tower, with a low spire, containing 6 bells hung in 1881, the three 17th century bells being removed". The lower part of the tower seems to be of Norman date, circa 1160, but has long narrow lancet windows of the Early English period in the north and south walls. From the roof upwards, including the broach spire, the building is Decorated work of about 1300. The rich chancel arch, two round-headed windows in the nave, and the inner door of the south porch belong to the Norman period; over the arch is a Saxon window, the only remains of an earlier church.

However, the great attraction of this church is its remarkably fine and spacious chancel, the work of Roger de Norbury, Bishop of Lichfield from 1322-59, who held the prebend of Sandiacre 1342-47. It has three large windows on each side with varied tracery of elegant design, between which are buttresses, the upper portions of which are panelled and traceried, rising into elaborately crocketed pinnacles. Above the windows runs a moulded parapet with quatrefoils, and near the window on the south side is a priest's doorway.

The chancel floor contains a very remarkable incised gravestone, slightly raised, and exhibiting a long floriated cross, supported by nondescript animals, one on each side, and dating probably from the 12th century. There are also several inscribed slabs - to Thomas Charlton and his wife Catherine, with arms (1631); Michael Charlton, their son, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and his wife Catherine (1589-1614); John Charlton (1696) and his wife Ann (1695), and others of this family from 1573-1687. In the nave is a floor slab to John, son of Willoughby Manley, gent. The stained east window was erected in 1887 in memory of Joseph Stevens, d.1875, by his sister Matilda. On the south side of the Norman arch is a memorial to the men connected with this parish who fell in the Great War, 1914-1918.

In 1932, the parish records of baptisms date from 1571, of marriages from 1581, and of burials from 1570. Unfortunately, according to Derbyshire Record Office's catalogue of Church of England Registers, the period 1581-1710 was destroyed by fire; marriages had however been printed in Phillimore's Vol 1.

Sandiacre is a parish and a large village on the borders of Nottinghamshire, and in 1932 had a station called Stapleford and Sandiacre on the Erewash Valley section of the London, Midland and Scottish railway. The Erewash canal, which joined the Derby canal to the south, and the Derby to Nottingham road were said to run close by. Roughly speaking, the railway line, and the Erewash Canal, both still extant, are what separates it from the town of Stapleford, and Nottinghamshire.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church is located at OS grid reference SK4800337263. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Giles's Church, Sandiacre shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Sandiacre shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)