The History of St Giles

The consecration of St. Giles' was spread over two days: Monday 31st August and Tuesday 1st September 1846. Pugin was much involved in the ceremonial preparations and also with practical arrangements for getting guests into the church.

Cheadle was not served directly by rail with the nearest station being Stafford, and then transport was by horse and carriage to the church. The consecration on 31st August 1846 was essentially a private affair in which the building, its furnishings and ornaments were solemnly blessed by Bishop Wiseman, culminating in a High Mass. In the evening Lord Shrewsbury entertained a party of 54 distinguished guests to a dinner at Alton Towers. The more public part of the consecration took place the following morning - St. Giles' day - when spectators gathered from miles around to the streets of Cheadle to witness sights and sounds not experienced since the Reformation: the procession of ten Catholic bishops and two archbishops in full pontifical's.

The importance of St. Giles' lies in the fact that everything about it is the product of one brilliant mind which understood all the principles of Gothic art and architecture and knew how to apply them. Pugin, whose busy schedule allowed time for daily Mass as well as morning and evening prayers at home, regarded himself first and foremost as a servant of the Church as "a builder up of men's minds and idea's as well as material edifices". It is this which singles Pugin out amongst the architects of the Gothic Revival, and St. Giles as the perfect expression of what he believed an English church should be.