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St Giles

History of St Giles Cambridge

The church was rebuilt 1874-5 but the original church was founded c. 1092 when Sheriff Picot and his wife founded a house of Augustinian canons here; the canons later moved to Barnwell. (Pevsner)

The story, recounted by Florence Keynes in By-ways of Cambridge History, is that Picot’s wife, Lady Hugoline, was so ill that she vowed, were she to recover her health, to build a church in honour of her patron saint, St Giles, as well as a religious community.

Old church of St Giles demolished in 1870

The old St Giles church

The rebuilding of St Giles in 1875

Urbs Camboritum, St Giles

Further information can be founded on Wikipedia.

St Giles circa 1920 (Cambridgeshire Collection)

The clock on the west wall of the church used to be located at the clock house which, until 1817, occupied the space between the NE turret and the first northern buttress of King’s College Chapel. It was then removed to the western wall of the old St Giles Church. When that was demolished the clock was put back on the west wall of the new church.

St Giles, west end

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