Church Of St James

The Church of St James is a parish church dating to 1862-3, representing a rebuilding by S.S. Teulon for Rev. Daniel Capper of Newbiggin, replacing an earlier church on a medieval site. The church is constructed of snecked sandstone with varied colours, featuring a pale ashlar plinth, quoins and dressings. It has a diaper-patterned roof of purple and green slates with roll-moulded ridge-tiles and stone gable copings. The layout consists of a nave with a north aisle, a north-west tower and stair turret, and a south porch, along with an apsed chancel and a north vestry.

The 6-bay nave incorporates a porch in the first bay, with the fifth bay slightly projecting and the sixth narrow and buttressed. The chancel is lower and features five windows. The porch has double boarded doors within a double-chamfered 2-centred arch, buttresses, curved kneelers, a stone cross finial, and three small lancet windows. Nave and aisle west windows have plate tracery, with 4-lights, while other windows are of 2 lights, except for a group of 3 in the fifth and 2 in the sixth nave bays, the fifth including a central gabled canopy. Roundels are found in the west bays of the chancel. The tower features a single high stage with a 3-light north window and lancet slits in the second stage, topped by a string and cusped belfry openings. A round stair turret, capped with a conical roof, sits on the north-east corner. The tower's roof is pyramidal, with a peacock wind-vane, while a steeply-pitched nave roof incorporates finials and an angelus cross; the chancel roof is slightly lower and rounded above the apse.

Inside, the plaster is painted with ashlar dressings. The nave features an arch-braced collar-truss roof, complete with upper king posts, struts, and two levels of purlins with wind braces. Closely-set scissor trusses characterize the chancel roof. The 3-bay north arcade, and the tower, chancel, and sanctuary arches are all 2-centred and chamfered, supported by round piers. The chancel includes a north arcaded frieze, and a south arched recess for a priest's chair. A stone pulpit with side steps, situated under paired arches in a rudimentary transept, is present. A round stone font sits on an octagonal plinth, continuous with the west shaft of the arcade. The glass is mostly original, clear and coloured geometrical, with two windows commemorating Edward and John Joicey (died 1879 and 1881) by Kempe, and chancel windows displaying geometrical patterns with pictorial panels. A Gothic painted-and-carved chamber organ by Gray and Davison, Euston Road, London, once exhibited at the Crystal Palace, is notable. Original fittings include doors with high-quality ironwork, a wooden altar (now repositioned), and a communion rail. A carved alabaster panel on the west wall commemorates returning soldiers from 1914-1918.