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Borrowed
from Stoke Poges Website
St. Giles,
the Parish Church of Stoke Poges, dates from Saxon times with
remains still existing in part of the Chancel Wall and windows.
There are parts still surviving from three later periods, Norman (
1086 ); the pillars, part of the Chancel and part of the Tower,
Early Gothic ( 1220 ); the nave reconstructed on the Norman
pillars and Tudor ( 1558 ); the Hastings Chapel, built in
red-brick.
The Church and Churchyard were formerly enclosed within the
grounds of Stoke Park, 200 yards away from the old Manor House,
hence their remoteness from the village.
Many notable people who occupied the Stoke Park Mansion supported
the Church. The Chancel contains the tomb of Sir John de Molyns,
Marshal of the King's Falcons and Supervisor of the King's
Castles. Sir John founded the Chantry in 1338 and it contains a
Piscina with two basins, a rare feature.
Originally the bells were rung from the floor of the tower. Mr.
John Penn made this into a Manor House pew in 1800 and constructed
a ringing chamber immediately above it. Since 1924 the bells have
been rung from a higher storey in the tower, accessed from an
external staircase.
The Hastings Chapel was built in red brick with stone mullioned
windows in 1558. Lord Hastings of Loughborough, son of the first
Earl of Huntingdon, founded a Hospital, or Almshouse in 1557 and
built the Chapel to serve as its oratory, also as a burial-place
for himself and other members of the Hastings family.
There are some interesting windows. One known as the 'Bicycle
Window' is made up of fragments of glass, one Piece dated 1643, as
a memorial to those who fell in the Second World War. It is not
possible to deduce the original complete design. Another pair of
windows commemorates the death of a small child belonging to the
Howard- Vyse family. They show the child leaving its earthly
mother and being accepted by its heavenly mother.
The tomb of Thomas Gray is immediately below the east window of
the Hastings Chapel. A tablet on the wall also records that his
mother Dorothy Gray and her sister Mary Antrobus are buried in the
vault below. Gray died at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge and requested
to be buried next to his mother.
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