A Guide to St Giles' Church, Stoke Poges.

The name "Stoke Poges": Stoke means a stockaded place. If sufficiently large and important it became known as "Stoke" or "The Place". Thus William Fitz-Ansculf who held the Manor in 1086 (in the grounds of which the Norman Church was built) became known as William Stoches or William of Stoke.
Two hundred years after the time of this William, Amicia, heiress of the then occupant of the Manor, who was known as Amicia of Stoke, married Robert Pogeys, who was Knight of the Shire. Thus the name was given to Stoke Poges.

How old is the Church? The architecture contains four periods.

1) Saxon (Part of the Chancel wall and window)

2) Norman A.D. 1086 (pillars, part of the Chancel and part of the
        Tower).

3) Early Gothic A.D. 1220 (the Nave, being re-constructed on the    
        Norman pillars)

4) The Tudor A.D. 1558 (the Hastings Chapel, or red brick part).
Its near neighbourhood to the Great House (some 200 yards away) accounts for the position of the Church and Churchyard, remote from the village and formerly enclosed within the grounds of Stoke Park.. First no doubt a Saxon Thane's* dwelling, then a Norman Castle and subsequently the Molyns' Embattled Castle of the 14th Century, and lastly the Elizabethan Manor House completed in 1555 by the Second Earl of Huntingdon.
This latter building was in turn reduced in size about the year 1790, when the present mansion in the Italian style was erected in the centre of the Park by Mr John Penn. The remaining portion of the manor was carefully restored in 1911 and since has been used as a residence.
* [Thane: A freeman granted land by the king in Anglo-Saxon England. (From Old English - thegn)]