St Giles Church originally stood just outside a gate in the city wall near the northwest corner. The round base of one of the battlements and some remains of the wall itself are incorporated into the post-war Barbican development that surrounds it. The original church was founded in 1090 in early Norman times. The earliest part of the present structure dates to a rebuilding in 1545 during Reformation times. The tower was raised fifteen feet in 1682, and various alterations were made in the nineteenth century. It was burned out in 1940 and for nearly twenty years stood in ruins until restored in 1960 by Godfrey Allen.
The founder of St Giles, Cripplegate, was Alfune, an associate of the famous prior Rahere who founded St Bartholomew’s, Smithfield. The site of the church, on swampy ground near the Walbrook where it flowed under the walls of London, caused construction problems in early days, and even today the water forms a pond below a retaining wall which runs around the perimeter of the building. Being at the north of the City and outside the wall, the church survived the Great Fire (but was not so fortunate during the wartime blitz).
Several of London’s great Christian figures are associated with St Giles, including John Foxe the martyrologist; Launcelot Andrewes, court preacher and a translator of the King James Version of the Bible; and the renowned poet John Milton. Foxe, who returned from exile when Elizabeth became queen, was ordained a priest and, joining forces with John Day the printer, brought out the first English edition of his famous Actes and Monuments in 1563. He served in several minor ecclesiastical posts and was, for a short time at the end of his life, rector of St Giles. Upon his death in 1587 he was buried in this church. The site is not marked. Andrewes was vicar of St Giles from 1588 to 1605 but is buried at St Saviour’s.
John Milton was a Londoner by birth, and his father, a scrivener or writer of legal papers, was interred in the chancel of St Giles. After living in numerous places in London Milton, toward the end of his life, resided in a house near Bunhill Fields. When he died in 1674 he was buried next to the grave of his father. The grave site was lost during the late eighteenth century due to some changes in the placement of the pews; in 1790 a search was made and the right spot found. A gravedigger and certain other hangers-on raised the coffin at night and desecrated the remains of the poet, taking away among other items a lock of hair (which eventually made its way into the museum at Milton’s Cottage, Chalfont St Giles). Today a stone in the floor of the chancel marks the site. There is also a bronze statue of Milton in the south aisle and a modern bust by John Bacon.
During the Great Plague of 1665 the parish of St Giles suffered heavily because of the swampy location. Some 8000 people died; one day, August 18, there were 151 funerals. The churchyard became a campground for refugees from the Great Fire the following year. Today, however, the location of this church—apart from the street traffic and surrounded by water and gardens—gives it a pleasant distinctiveness.