St Giles-without-Cripplegate: Cromwell's Wedding Church

St Giles-without-Cripplegate is a medieval London church in the Barbican development where Oliver Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier on August 22, 1620. The thousand-year-old church originally stood outside the city wall near the ancient Cripplegate. Poet John Milton was buried in the church in 1674, and composer Bernard Herrmann recorded his final score, Taxi Driver, inside during the 1970s.

London Β· from the walk β€œSecrets and Surprises of Barbican” Β· audio ~3 min Β· Generated

St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Fore Street, London EC2Y 8DA

Which historical figures were married or buried at St Giles-without-Cripplegate in London?

Look at the building in front of you... a medieval church, surrounded on all sides by brutalist concrete towers. Saint Giles sits rather incongruously in the middle of the Barbican development, surrounded by modern buildings, but this church has been a part of London history for over a Thousand years.......... Its full name is a riddle in itself. Saint Giles Without Cripplegate. When built, it stood "without" β€” that is, outside β€” the city wall, near the Cripplegate. Now, the word "Cripplegate"... you'd think it refers to cripples and beggars, wouldn't you? There is no definitive explanation, though it's likely the word comes from the Anglo-Saxon "Cruplegate," meaning a covered way or tunnel β€” which would have run from the town gate to the Barbican, a fortified watchtower on the city wall. Though the dedication to Saint Giles is no coincidence... tradition holds that Saint Giles was lame, so in the Middle Ages he became the patron saint of cripples and beggars, many of whom waited by the principal northern gate of the city.......... Now here's where the secrets begin. The parish register records the marriage of Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth Bourchier on the twenty-second of August, sixteen twenty. His wife was the daughter of a Cripplegate leather merchant, and the couple had nine children. He was just twenty-one β€” a nobody from Huntingdon. No one could have guessed he'd one day topple a king.......... And the poet John Milton... blind, brilliant, author of Paradise Lost... was buried here in sixteen seventy-four. But Milton was not allowed to rest in peace. During the seventeen nineties, while repairs were being made to the chancel, his coffin was exhumed. The enterprising verger opened it and put the great poet on public display, charging first sixpence, later tuppence, and finally just the price of a pint for a peek. Milton's corpse received what was called "obscene and scandalous treatment" β€” portions of his bones, hair, and teeth were removed and dispersed as souvenirs. A lock of hair eventually made its way to Milton's Cottage museum in Chalfont Saint Giles, where you can still see it today.......... And did you know that William Shakespeare himself may have stood inside these walls? While living nearby, he wrote Othello, Measure for Measure, and King Lear. His brother Edmund, also a Cripplegate resident, had two sons baptised in Saint Giles, and tradition has it that William attended the services.......... And one more surprise, a truly hidden gem. In nineteen sixty-one, the veteran American composer Bernard Herrmann relocated from Los Angeles to London. The man behind the shrieking violins in Psycho. Saint Giles Church is noted for its fine acoustic, something which drew Herrmann to the church as a recording studio. It was Here that his last three film scores were recorded in the nineteen seventies β€” It's Alive, Taxi Driver, and Obsession. Just five months away from death, he found the recording sessions in Saint Giles Church an exhausting experience. He died on Christmas Eve, nineteen seventy-five... the Taxi Driver score his final gift to cinema.......... So look around you. A thousand years of worship. Cromwell's wedding. Milton's restless bones. Shakespeare's nephews. And the haunting notes of Hollywood's greatest film scores... all echoing through these ancient walls.

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