St Giles
Cheddington, Bedfordshire
A rural church in a peaceful location with a public footpath running alongside the churchyard.
Externally the walls are rubble limestone with dressings of clunch, chalk stone quarried at Totternhoe (in next-door Bedfordshire). In places this soft stone has had to be replaced in harder wearing limestone, but inside the church the advantages of an easily carved stone are apparent in the moulded piers and arches of the nave arcades, and particularly in the stiff leaf ornament of the capitals.
Above the arcade is a 15th century clerestory, but the outline can also be seen of the earlier circular windows which it replaced. Some of these beautiful circular windows survive in the west facing walls of the transepts.
High above the nave is an excellent 15th century timber roof with carved angels and with the Apostles on the wall posts.
The fine Jacobean pulpit has an hourglass stand, and the lectern is 15th century with a double sided revolving bookrest.