Church Of St James

BIRKENHEAD

SJ28NE ST JAMES'S ROAD 789-1/3/143 Church of St James 28/03/74

GV II

Parish church. Begun 1845 by C.E.Lang, finished 1858 by Walter Scott. Coursed and squared rubble with Welsh slate roof. Nave with two aisles, transepts and chancel, north-west tower and spire. Early English style. Buttressed western gable with 6 arcaded lancets, alternately blind and glazed. Rose window over with chevron moulding. 3-stage tower with clasping buttresses terminating in pilaster-shafts at upper level. North doorway with paired shafts. Lancet windows above, and triple-arched bell chamber lights. Corbel table. Spire with lucarnes. Gabled porch to south west, with steep moulded arch with paired shafts. 5-bay aisle divided by gabletted buttresses, with wide lancet windows with shafts. Triple lancet windows to clerestory. Plain corbel table over aisle and clerestory. Paired lancets with shafts and quatrefoil over to transept. North aisle and transept similarly detailed. East walls of transepts have raking arcaded trefoiled windows to former gallery, and flying buttresses to nave. Chancel divided by buttresses into 3 unequal bays with paired plain lancets. 3 stepped lancets to east window. Interior: Nave arcade of 5 bays with cylindrical shafts with alternately ring moulded and foliate capitals. Heavily moulded arches. Clustered shafts to transept arch and eastern responds. Pilasters support main roof trusses which are scissor braced with side purlins. Paired trusses to west, and to each side of transepts. Clustered shafts to chancel arch. Octagonal stone pulpit with enriched foiled panels. Oak reredos with central traceried niche housing cross flanked by paired traceried panels with angels on riddle posts, and surmounted by enriched frieze. Oak reredos to altar in south transept dated 1913 and removed from St Mary's church (q.v.). Marble font, a circular basin with squared shafts at cardinal points mounted on mosaic floor. Oak screen along west wall with coving and foliate frieze. Copper light fittings in nave. Stained glass in east window, Jones and Willis, 1913, figures of Saints James and John either side of Christ. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Hubbard E: Cheshire: Harmondsworth: 1971-).

Listing NGR: SJ2968989970