Holborn and Bloomsbury | Page 5

the gate-house. Whether

the number of lepers was reduced when the hospital possessions were
curtailed we are not told. After the hospital buildings fell into the hands
of Lord Dudley they underwent many changes. The principal building
he converted into a mansion for his own use; this was the manor-house.
It stood between the present Denmark Street and Lloyd's Court, and its
site is occupied by a manufactory. After two years Lord Dudley
obtained from the King license to transfer all his newly-gained estates
to Sir Wymonde Carew, but there seems reason to suppose that Lord
Dudley remained in possession of the manor-house until his attainder in
the reign of Queen Mary, because the manor then reverted to the Crown,
and was regranted. Clinch gets out of this difficulty by supposing Lord
Dudley to have parted with his estates and retained the manor, but in
the deed of license for exchange all his "mansion place and capital
house, late the house of the dissolved hospital of St. Giles in the
Fields," is especially mentioned. It is possible that Sir Wymonde leased
it again to the Dudley family.
Among the many subsequent holders of the manor we find the name of
Sir Walter Cope, who bought the Manor of Kensington in 1612, and
through whose only child, Isabel, it passed by marriage to Sir Henry
Rich, created Earl of Holland. The Manor of St. Giles was in the
possession of the Crown again in Charles II.'s reign, when Alice Leigh,
created by him Duchess of Dudley, lived in the manor-house. This
Duchess made many gifts to the church, among which was a
rectory-house.
The Church of St. Giles at present standing is certainly the third, if not
the fourth, which has been upon the same site. As mentioned above,
there is reason to believe from Henry II.'s charter that a sacred building
of some sort stood here before the leper chapel. The chapel had a
chapter-house attached, and seems to have been a well-cared-for
building. There were several chantry chapels and a high altar dedicated
to St. Giles. St. Giles's in the earlier charters is spoken of as a village,
not a parish, but there is little doubt that after the establishment of the
hospital its chapel was used as a parish church by the villagers. There
was probably a wall screening off the lepers. The first church of which
any illustration is preserved has a curious tower, capped by a round

dome. The view of this church, dated 1560, is taken after the
dissolution of the hospital, when it had become entirely parochial. In
1617 the quaint old tower was taken down, and replaced by another,
but only six years after the whole church was rebuilt. A view of this in
1718 gives a very long battlemented body in two stories, with a square
tower surmounted by an open belfry and vane. It possessed remarkably
fine stained-glass windows and a handsome screen presented by the
Duchess of Dudley.
This second church did not last very long, for in Queen Anne's reign
the parishioners petitioned that it should be rebuilt as one of the fifty
new churches, being then in a state of decay. The present church, which
is very solid, and has dignity of outline, was the work of Flitcroft, and
was opened April 14, 1734. The steeple is 160 feet high, with a rustic
pedestal, a Doric story, an octagonal tower, and spire. The basement is
of rusticated Portland stone, of which the church is built, and quoins of
the same material decorate the windows and angles within. It follows
the lines of the period, with hardly any chancel, wide galleries on three
sides standing on piers, from which columns rise to the elliptical ceiling.
The part of the roof over the galleries is bayed at right angles to the
curve of the central part. Monuments hang on the walls and columns,
and occupy every available space. By far the most striking of these is
the full-length figure of a woman in repose which is set on a broad
window-seat. This is the monument of Lady Frances Kniveton,
daughter of Alice Leigh, Duchess of Dudley. The daughter's tomb
remains a memorial of her mother's benefactions to the parish. The
monument of Andrew Marvell, a plain black marble slab, is on the
north wall. Marvell was buried in the church "under the pews in the
south side," but the present monument was not erected until 1764,
eighty-six years after his death, owing to the opposition of the
incumbent of the church. The inscription on it slightly varies from that
intended for the original monument. Besides a handsome brass cross on
the chancel floor to the Rector, Canon Nisbett, a tomb in form of a
Roman altar, designed by Inigo Jones, and commemorating