Church of St James

Church of St James

The Church of St James is built of speckled, hand-made bricks in English garden wall bond, with red brick dressings and a steeply pitched grey slate roof with green slate patterning. It is designed in an eclectic Gothic style.

The building comprises an unaisled, buttressed nave with a square south-west tower that incorporates a porch, and a polygonal apsidal baptistry at the west end. The canted chancel is flanked by a south vestry and a slightly later choir vestry on the north side. Windows are predominantly pointed-arch lancets.

The full-height apsidal baptistry features tall pointed-arch lancet windows with a band of inscribed encaustic tiles beneath. The three-stage tower has a steep saddleback roof with a small gabled timber dormer and raised diaper brickwork to the gable apexes. The belfry stage contains paired louvred lancets, with narrow lancets at the second stage. A pointed-arch porch doorway is set in the west wall, a lancet window in the south wall, and a raised tower doorway in the east wall reached by external steps. The vestry has a pointed-arch doorway to the left of the south gable, with a large circular window placed centrally above. The chancel features two canted walls, each with a tripartite window. The choir vestry is built of the same materials and style, with a large circular window in the north gable and an external doorway in the west side wall.

The interior contains a deeply arch-braced kingpost roof with wind-braced purlins and common rafters with collars. Flooring comprises wooden parquet and tiles, with encaustic inscriptions in the chancel and mosaic in the sanctuary. The walls feature dado bands of cream brick and polychrome voussoirs to door and window arches and the chancel arch. The sanctuary walls are decorated with oak panelling and a reredos presented in memory of John Bruster, vicar from 1888 to 1928. Two blind arches are present, with the north wall arch containing a piscina. The south chancel wall has an archway containing the original organ loft, with a lower pierced timber screen separating the chancel from the vestry.

The baptistry features an encaustic tile inscription beneath the windows and contains a circular stone font. The nave has open-backed oak pews with angled struts, with more ornate choir stalls in the chancel. The 1960s additions of stalls, pulpit and lectern are positioned by the chancel arch. The porch has inner double doors with glazed quatrefoils to the upper half, and vestry doors have rows of trefoil upper lights with pierced timber over-screens bearing trefoil lights.

The church contains several good-quality stained glass windows. The east windows, dated 1883, depict the life of Christ. Two two-light windows in the north wall of the nave show Christ calling James and his brother John—one dated 1882 and the other from the 1930s. Other windows feature plain leaded lights with narrow yellow border bands.

The original vestry contains a brick pointed-arch fireplace, now blocked. The choir vestry incorporates an original external buttress and has a modern suspended ceiling of temporary nature, originally being open to the roof.

The principal alteration to the building is the insertion of an organ loft at the west end of the nave in 1971, which cuts across the baptistry windows.