Lych gate and attached stone and flint wall, Church of St Giles

Summary

Lych gate, built 1887 to the designs of John Oldrid Scott.

Reasons for Designation

The lych gate and flanking walls situated approximately 50m to the south-east of the Church of St Giles, Stoke Poges are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a carefully composed and elaborately carved lych gate with flanking walls, designed as a piece in the Gothic Revival tradition by John Oldrid Scott, a prominent ecclesiastical architect in the last decades of the C19;

Historic interest:

* as a well-preserved exemplar of a late C19 lych gate for an earlier church, sited prominently in churchyard of St Giles, renowned for its association with Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’;

Group value:

* with the Grade I-listed Church of St Giles and the Grade II-listed tomb to the poet Thomas Gray, along with the Grade II* monument in the neighbouring Gray’s Field of Stoke Park.

History

Lych gates are the ornamental and often picturesque gateways which lead to churchyards, and which possess symbolic importance as the threshold between the secular and sacred parts of a parish. Medieval lych gates were used as a meeting point and shelter for burial parties bringing bodies for interment. The group would convene beneath the lych gate, to be met by the priest prior to entering the consecrated churchyard and beginning funerary rituals. Some examples had a slab or rest to hold the coffin, and they often had benches inside. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon or German word for corpse: lich, or leiche. Lych gates continued to be built throughout the C19 and C20, and later examples, particularly after the First World War, were often erected as memorial structures.

The lych gate and knapped flint wall to the Church of St Giles in Stoke Poges were built in 1887 to the designs of John Oldrid Scott (1841-1913), the second son of the architect Sir Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), who inherited the family practice from his father. Oldrid Scottt was a prominent figure in the development of the Gothic Revival in the last decades of the C19. He designed a number of churches in this the period, of which important examples include St Augustine, Croydon, of 1881-84 (Grade II*; List entry 1079301) and the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Aghia Sophia, Moscow Road, London, of 1878-79 (Grade I; List entry 1223553). The lych gate at St Giles distills some of the key formal and decorative themes of the Gothic Revival style demonstrated in Scott’s wider ecclesiastical work, particularly seen here in the relief-carved foliate detailing and delicate cusped openwork to the bargeboards. There are stylistic similarities with another lych gate known to have been designed by Oldrid Scott in 1880 that stands in the Churchyard of St Andrew and St Mary in Fletching, East Sussex (listed at Grade II in 1982; List entry 1353471).

Erected as part of the expansion of the churchyard, marking the new south-eastern entrance, the low-set wall and ‘most beautiful lych-gate’ were paid for by a donation by Mr Gilliat of Duffield House, Stoke Poges, as noted in a letter to The Times from the then Rector of St Giles, Reverend Vernon Blake, published 22 November 1887. The churchyard was further enlarged in 1911, with the grounds being shown broadly in their present form on the 1925 OS 1:1,2500 Buckinghamshire map, with a later and simpler lych gate apparently added as part of this secondary extension to the south-east, adjacent to Church Lane.

The parish churchyard of St Giles is particularly associated with Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ (published 1751), which is acknowledged to reference Stoke Poges, a village with which Gray had a close association throughout his life and in which he was known to be staying when he completed the verse in 1750. Thomas Gray (1716-1771) was buried in the churchyard (his tomb listed at Grade II; List entry 1124345). A large monument designed by James Wyatt and inscribed with lines from the Elegy was erected in 1799 in the adjacent Gray’s Field of Stoke Park to commemorate him (listed at Grade II*; List entry 1124346).

Details

Lych gate, built 1887 to the designs of John Oldrid Scott.

PLAN: the lych gate stands approximately 50m south-east of the church. The stone and flint wall flanks the lych gate, running broadly north-south and returning at a northern end to the west for around 20m.

MATERIALS: Carved timber gate structure with ashlar stone and knapped flint wall.

DESCRIPTION: the lych gate is a gabled structure with a set of carved gates on its eastern side which mark the entrance to the churchyard to St Giles as it existed in 1887 (prior to consecration of the south-eastern extension in 1911). The stone and knapped flint walls form the sides and plinth of the lych gate, supporting the timber structure. The lych gate is formed of richly-carved timber members that are pegged together in the traditional manner. The structure is designed in an elaborate Gothic Revival manner, with cusped openwork to the sides and pierced bargeboards with foliate patterning and central pendants overhanging the pointed arches to the east and west. The roof structure is clad in plain clay tiles with rounded ridge tiles.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the low-set knapped flint and stone wall supports the sides of the lych gate and extends approximately 20m to the south and north, with a return section to the west of the northern stretch of around 20m, marking the boundary of this part of the churchyard. The ashlar stone dressings have chamfered edges to the capping stones at the corner sections of the wall.

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Williamson, E, The Buildings of England: Buckinghamshire (2000), 652-653

Websites
National Trust: Gray’s Monument and Gray’s Field Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, accessed 30 November 2021 from https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/grays-monument-and-grays-field-stoke-poges-buckinghamshire

Other
Reverend C E Harris, 'A Guide to Stoke Poges Parish Church' (date unknown)
'Stoke Poges Church', The Times, 22 November 1887

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