The History of St Giles

Pugin also referred to St. Giles' as "my consolation in all afflictions", and there is no doubt that the freedom from restrictions, and the resources available to him at Cheadle, and the enthusiastic support of Lord Shrewsbury, compensated somewhat for the professional and personal disappointments he encountered elsewhere, for example the constraints imposed by church-building committees, the indifference of many clergy to his dreams of a Gothic England, and the death of his second wife, Louisa, in 1844.

That St. Giles' increased in size and splendour as the work progressed was not just the result of Pugins own enthusiasm for the project and his ability to prise additional sums of money out of the pocket of a reluctant patron. Lord Shrewsbury was himself committed to the promotion of the revived Gothic as a means of winning souls, and several of the alterations and additions at Cheadle were suggested by the Earl himself.

The infinite care which Pugin took over St. Giles' is reflected in his wide-ranging search for what he called "authorities", i.e., medieval precedents, for what he proposed to do. In 1840 he made a tour of what he called "the very cream of Norfolk churches in the course of preparation of his designs for Cheadle, drawing details of mouldings, tracery patterns and canopy work, and his sketchbook from this tour survives in the Victoria & Albert Museum. East Anglican porches were Pugins' source of inspiration for the stone-vaulted south porch of St. Giles'.He studied surviving rood-screens in Norfolk, and the one at Castle Acre appears to have been particular favourite in his preparations for the Cheadle screen.

Not all of Pugin's authorities were English. Gothic indeed has always been an international language with local and national dialects. On a visit to Antwerp in 1843 Pugin hoped to find "glorious details for the Cheadle windows" and "the most beautiful authorities for painted details at Cheadle above all". In May 1844 Pugin visited the recently restored Sainte Chapelle in central Paris, a richly decorated private chapel built for King Louis IX in the mid-thirteenth century.