A Pugin pilgrimage

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Even if you’re not religious, the church of St Giles, Cheadle, will still likely leave you thinking heavenly thoughts.

It’s considered one of the very finest, if not the finest, churches designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, one of the top architects and designers of the 19th Century.

(He’s the bloke who made the Houses of Parliament look the way they do; the basic building was designed by Charles Barry, but AWN Pugin was responsible for decorating it.)

Pugin designed lots of other buildings too, from houses for himself and others, to Oxford colleges, but it’s churches that he’s probably best known for.

He was a leading figure in the Gothic revival, which tried to recreate the building and design style/s popular in Mediaeval Europe; he believed that Mediaeval times were better spiritually than the times in which he was living, and the architecture reflected that. Reviving the style of architecture went hand in hand with a spiritual revival. At least that was the theory.

Designing a church wasn’t just a creative process for Pugin, it was an absolute labour of love, and St Giles, Cheadle, is supposed to be one of the best embodiments of that.

Of all the buildings I encountered through my Victorian Gothic architecture course, St Giles Cheadle was one of the ones I most wanted to see.

But unlike the (former) Midland Grand Hotel in London, St Giles, being in the wilds of Staffordshire, was always pretty inaccessible to me, especially as I didn’t have a car and it didn’t have a railway station.

But a few years ago, many years after I left uni, a chance came up to go to Cheadle, so I did. And St Giles did not disappoint, as you can judge for yourself here: