Gloucestershire Places of Worship

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Copyright of John Williams
St Giles's Church, Coberley
St Giles's Church,
Coberley Village,
Coberley, Gloucestershire.

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 in the 12th century, and we understand it is still open.

St Giles is a simple church, but very little remains of the original building except for the 14th century chapel and the porch and tower of the perpendicular period. It is thought that the original foundations were Norman, but in 1870 a beautifully carved Saxon cross was found in the churchyard.

The Perpendicular tower houses 3 bells which are no longer in a fit state to ring.

The south chapel was built and endowed by Sir Thomas de Berkeley about 1340.

The most important monument in the church depicts a knight in armour and his lady. They are Sir Thomas de Berkeley, dressed in the armour he wore at the Battle of Crecy (1346), and his wife Lady Joan. Sir Thomas died in 1350 and his widow subsequently married Sir William Whittington of Pauntley. She had 3 sons by her second marriage, the youngest being Richard, better known as "Dick" Whittington, "thrice Lord Mayor of London". A small memorial beside it is thought to be a child of Sir Thomas and Lady Joan.

To one side of the communion table is a heart burial monument - the only one of its kind in the Cotswolds. The heart is of Sir Giles Berkeley, father of Sir Thomas, who fought in the Crusades. He died, and was buried in 1295 in Little Malvern, but his heart was brought 'home' to be buried at Coberley. His favourite charger, Lombard is also reputedly buried in the churchyard, opposite the heart burial. [Source: John Williams, from a church leaflet, and Rosemary Lockie, from Arthur Mee's The King's England - Gloucestershire]

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 SO9655715826. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

Information last updated on 20 Apr 2013 at 11:05.

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This Report was created 15 Nov 2024 - 12:57:56 GMT from information held in the Gloucestershire section of the Places of Worship Database. This was last updated on 13 Oct 2021 at 14:13.

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