History of the Parish and Church ST GILES Colchester

History of the Parish and Church ST GILES Colchester Historical Notes on the Church & Parish of St. Giles, Colchester By George Rickword F.R. Hist. S. Note – This record of St. Giles’s Church and Parish was commissioned by Mr. Reginald B. Beard J.P., for his friend, the late Rev. E.W. Hartley Parker, M.A. former Rector of the parish, and publication is by Mr. Beard’s kind permission. This transcript is dated between 1931 and when the church closed in 1954. THE PARISH OF ST. GILES is the largest of the twelve urban parishes of Colchester. It covers 1,501 acres, the whole south side of the town, from Rowhedge and the Colne on the east to Reed Hall on the Layer Road westward, and is bounded on the north by Berechurch. It has long been the most populous parish in the borough. It may represent the property of some Saxon thane, but Domesday takes no notice of parochial divisions, being only concerned with fiscal questions. We may surmise that some thirty or forty of the burgesses, with their families, cultivated their fiveacre plots in the common fields in the days of Edward the Confessor, and found sustenance for their sheep and cattle on the heath, and pannage for their pigs in the dense woods which covered both Donylands. Nor must we overlook the forefathers of our worldfamous Colne navigators, the sailors, whose boats carried on what exterior trade there was when roads were hardly known. The hamlet we now call Old Heath is really the ancient “hithe” of harbour which Britons, Romans and Saxons had used for over a thousand years till the Normans found it profitable to bring their vessels up the river to the new “hithe,” now the parish of St. Leonard, deserting the old harbour. The Saxon Church was well organised under its bishops, and although we know little of the people at this date, the parish must have been represented at the Law Hundred Court of Colchester, thrice yearly, by its masspriest, its reeve and four chosen men. Seven priests are named in Domesday. Where the earliest church of wattle and daub was situated we cannot say, but with the advent of Eudo, William the Conqueror’s steward, we reach firmer ground. THE BENEDICTINE ABBEY OF ST. JOHN BAPTIST An ancient chronicler records that Eudo, who was given charge of the City, as it was then styled, by William Rufus, had gained the goodwill of the burgesses by his clemency and careful consideration of their grievances. Now, Eudo, who was practically chief minister of the Crown under the Conqueror and his sons, was both an able ruler and a good churchman. Though only the younger son of a small landowner in Normandy whose family had won the favour of the Duke, he had married the granddaughter of Walter Giffard, created Earl of Buckinghamshire, one of the most powerful of the new Norman nobility. The Lady Rose, whose name survives at Royston in Herts., was as devout as she was beautiful, and shared her husband’s care for the welfare of those over whom fortune had placed them. Thus, maybe, she was stirred when, after a long day’s hunting of the polecat, she rested on the dais in the great hall of the Stone House in the High Street, by the story of the strange experiences of Siric, the Saxon priest. He had long ministered in a little church of rough planks which served for his simple flock, and, with a chamber attached, afforded him a home. It stood on the northern slope of the hill still overlooking the town, and was dedicated to St. John the Evangelist. The townsmen, attracted by his devout serving at Mass and the unaffected fervour of his discourse, often crowded it. So it seems only natural, in an uncritical age, that stories of the marvellous attached themselves to the little shrine – that at night mysterious lights were to be seen in the church, and sweet strains of angelic voices heard, and even in broad daylight, at the sacring of the Holy Food, the iron chains of a townsman, fettered by royal command, fell clattering to the ground. As Eudo pondered over these reports, the conviction grew on him that here was the site for an undertaking he had long contemplated the foundation of an abbey where Almighty God might be worshipped with due solemnity, and men’s lives devoted to sacred learning. There was none such in Essex, but in his Norman home “ a powerful man thought that he laid himself open to mockery if he did not help clerks, or monks, on his lands with the things needful for God’s warfare.” So on the Feast of the Decollation of St. John the Baptist, August 29 th, 1095, the ground was plotted out, and at the following Easter the foundation stones were solemnly blessed by his friend Maurice, Bishop of London, and well and duly laid by Eudo, the lady Rohesia, Earl Gilbert de Clare, her brother, and other magnates. Siric doubtless was present, and possibly his church served for the community till their own was ready. Its memory was long preserved in the official seal of the Abbey, though Eudo chose St. John the Forerunner for his patron in preference to the Beloved Disciple. The career of Eudo has no immediate connection the parish of St. Giles, so we need not here narrate his difficulties and disappointments. It will be sufficient to say that after five troubled years he saw Hugh, a monk from York, solemnly ordained as abbot by his friend, Bishop Maurice. Thirteen years later, on 10 th February, 1116, the completed church was consecrated in the presence of Queen Maud and a large gathering of prelates and nobles by Richard, Bishop of London, and Herbert, Bishop of Norwich and founder of its Cathedral. THE CHURCH OF ST. GILES With great probability we may refer the origin of the present church of St. Giles to the next few years. It is not easy to associate with the brave and masterful race who now ruled England and much of France keen appreciation for the virtues of humility and selfeffacement, yet two of the most popular dedications for churches at this date were to St. Leonard, a hermit in northern France, and to St. Giles, whose cell was on an affluent of the Rhone in the south. The latter is usually designated an abbot from the famous monastery which after his death was built over the rude cave where his piety and wisdom won such wide affection. The wellknown legend made such an appeal to Norman lovers of the chase tells how a king of the Franks, pursuing a startled hind through the forest, saw it disappear in a gloomy cavern, and hastily discharging an arrow, followed, only to find he had wounded a venerable man by whose side the hind had taken refuge. Enquiries revealed to him the hermit’s reputation, and struck by his wisdom he tried to tempt him to his court, but Giles soon found that kings’ houses and soft raiment were not for him, and gladly returned to his hermitage. Here he died 1 st September, 714, the date on which he is commemorated in both Anglican and Roman Calendars. His memory was an inspiration for over four centuries, and some hundred and fifty English churches are dedicated in his honour to the worship of God. Queen Maud founded one of the most famous, St Giles in the Fields, St. Giles, Cripplegate, soon following. In Essex we find Hallingbury and Langford, both connected with Eudo’s relatives, dedicated to St. Giles, as well as Orsett, Maplestead and Rainham. This last is today almost unchanged, a pure Norman church with an apsidal chancel, such as St. Giles, Colchester, probably had. To attempt a history of the famous abbey of St John is not possible here; where we are concerned only with the humble parish church built within the precincts by the abbot for his tenants and lay neighbours. Under the second abbot, Gilbert, a monk of Bec and prior to Evremond in Normandy, chosen by King Henry I, to succeed Hugh, we have our earliest notice of the present church. By a disastrous fire is 1133 the little wooden church, the newly built monastery, and a large part of the town timber built and thatches were destroyed. To the rebuilding which followed we owe the rubble south wall of the nave, in which one may see a roundheaded Norman window, arched with those Roman tiles, the stock of which must by this have been nearly exhausted. An incident of this date, in reign of King Stephen or perhaps his predecessor, Henry I., supplies us with the name of the earliest priest to whom we can allot a Colchester parish. A certain William of Amavilla and Richolda, his wife who had an estate at Finborough, near Stowmarket, gave part of it to the abbey. Among the with witnesses present were Ralf, dean of Finborough, Gilbert, presbyter of St. Giles, Colchester with Gaufrid and Osbern, nephews of abbot Gilbert. Serfdom then and long after prevailed, and we read that William took Wietrie, the tenant of the land, by the hand and offered him, on the altar of St. John, with his tenure of his dues of ten shillings annually, half of the Feast of St. Michael and half on the Annunciation of St. Mary. A generation later, we have further evidence that the church was in being, when on 1 st April 1179, Pope Alexander III., among other properties, confirmed to the abbey the church of St.

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