Architectural Features
EXTERIOR: The late medieval W tower is of three stages and has set-back buttresses.
The main shafts have mouldings above them while the marble ones carry highly original carved foliage capitals designed by the local antiquary Peter Orlando Hutchinson: above these in turn a shaft rises vertically to imbed itself in the hollow chamfering of the arches of the arcade.
They have black and dull brown marble shafts, ornately carved foliage capitals and double-chamfered arches.
The stone pulpit is polygonal and has pierced sides.
![The mason's work gone into the font is clear, as is the carpenter's efforts in the wooden cover. See [[[7647046]]] for a wider view.](https://storage.googleapis.com/natbase-94192.firebasestorage.app/observations/P27pQHOF9FRxHV3xniseBoXaG4S2/1775667989320_7647051_fa0ef10a.jpg)
The font is octagonal and has a traceried bowl and a tall, richly buttressed and pinnacled timber font cover.
The mason's work gone into the font is clear, as is the carpenter's efforts in the wooden cover. See [[[7647046]]] for a wider view.
There is a 15th-century stained glass shield depicting the five wounds of Christ in the N chancel aisle.
Mid-Victorian stained glass includes the E window by William Wailes, 1860: his is also the S aisle W window.
Numerous monuments have been re-sited from the previous church, notably a draped urn to Mary Lisle in the S chancel aisle: there are many minor wall tablets from the 18th and 19th centuries.
In the SW part of the churchyard is a memorial timber lychgate with a hipped roof.
HISTORY: This is the medieval parish church of Sidmouth whose popularity as a resort developed in the late 18th century.
Continued expansion and increased prosperity led to a rebuilding of the church except for the medieval tower.
SOURCES: Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Devon, 1989, pp 737-8.
Photographs in National Monuments Record, Swindon.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Giles and St Nicholas, Sidmouth, is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * It is of very considerable interest in retaining its late medieval tower and otherwise being a large and significant church by William White, one of the leading church architects in Victorian England.
There is a fine collection of mid-Victorian stained glass. * Although the church has been stripped of most of its Victorian furnishings, White's impressive, confident architecture can still be readily appreciated.