St Giles' Church, Camberwell

The ancient parish stretched from Boundary Lane, just north of the present Albany Road, south as far as Sydenham Hill. The Anglo-Saxon church on the site of St Giles', and recorded in the Domesday Book, was almost certainly built of wood and stood amongst fields and woodland. The church was later rebuilt in stone by William FitzRobert, Earl of Gloucester and Lord of the Manor of Camberwell. Numerous alterations and extensions took place over the next three hundred years and by the 18th century, the church was crammed with box pews. On 7 February 1841 a devastating fire, caused by a faulty heating system and fuelled by the wooden pews and galleries, virtually destroyed the medieval church.…

St Giles' Church is laid out in a cruciform plan and has gabled transepts. The nave has a clerestory and lower aisles with five bays and gabled entrance porches. The interior has an arch-braced roof and a lierne vault at the crossing. The nave is flanked by alternately round and octagonal columns with foliated capitals. The south transept is used as the Lady Chapel and the north transept holds the organ. The 19th-century church features a sedilla and piscina on the south side of the Lady Chapel which date from the 14th century, both remnants of the mediaeval church. Further remains of the old church are visible in the former vicarage garden on Benhill Road, where a mediaeval porch stands.…