Church Of St Philip And St James

Church of St Philip and St James

This parish church in York was built in 1866–67 to a design by George Fowler Jones and reordered in the mid-20th century. It is constructed in dressed stone with ashlar quoins and dressings, a chamfered plinth, and stone-coped gabled slate roofs with stone gable crosses and finials. The building is designed in the Early English style.

The plan consists of a 2-bay chancel with a north vestry and organ chamber; a 5-bay nave with north and south transepts and a north door; and a west tower with a south porch and an extruded staircase to the north. Flat dormers on each side of the roof contain seven arcaded clerestory lights with diamond-leaded glazing.

The east window comprises five lancets grouped in a chamfered quoined surround with a 2-centred head beneath a hoodmould on head stops. The chancel's north side is largely obscured by the vestry, which features a 7-lobed light in a circular surround in its gable end and two 3-light windows with diamond-leaded lights. The south side has bays divided by a buttress, each containing three grouped lancets in quoined chamfered surrounds beneath 2-centred relieving arches.

The nave's north and south sides feature paired gabled transepts at the eastern end and a single cross-gabled bay at the western end, separated by a squat 2-stage gabled buttress. On the south side, this buttress has a carved rainwater hopper at its head. Each transept contains a 3-light window with plate tracery in a 2-centred head beneath a hoodmould with foliate stops. The north transept has mid-20th-century double doors of plain board in a quoined chamfered stopped opening. To the west on the south side is a lean-to porch with a board door in a chamfered arched opening. The cross-gabled bays at the western end have windows of three stepped lancets with plate-traceried 2-centred heads and hoodmoulds on corbel head stops. The other nave windows consist of groups of three lancets matching the chancel details.

The 4-stage tower features a gabled projecting porch to the south with double doors glazed with timber intersecting tracery and panelled and recessed in a 2-centred arch of three orders beneath a hoodmould on head stops. The orders spring from chamfered responds and are enriched with attached leaf mouldings, many now lost. A filleted moulded impost string is returned and steps up and down to form a sill string beneath windows throughout the building. In the gable apex is a sunk foiled triangular moulding incorporating the letters IHS. The west window is trefoil-headed in a pointed arch of three orders: the outer has slender angle shafts with bell capitals, shaft rings and moulded bases, whilst the inner is enriched and continuously moulded. Above this is a single chamfered pointed slit light. The third stage contains a diamond-shaped clock face to the west and south. The belfry is set back with attached angle shafts with moulded capitals and shaft rings. Each face has a chamfered opening with plate tracery in the 2-centred head and paired arched lights with scalloped louvres springing from square responds and slender centre shafts with moulded capitals. A corbelled eaves cornice sits beneath a pyramidal roof with lucarnes and a weathervane. A 2-stage half-hexagonal staircase turret has staggered square-headed slit lights and a single blind trefoil at the head of each face beneath a half-conical roof.

The interior contains a chancel arch of 2 chamfered orders that dies into responds. The transept arches are of 3 orders and spring from squat cylindrical columns with moulded capitals at the centre and from responds at the outer ends, except for the inner orders which spring from moulded corbels. The chancel and transept arches are now screened with glazed timber partitions. The tower arch is low and 2-centred and is screened by a mid-20th-century reredos. The nave roof is a hammerbeam construction with arch-braced trusses, squat king posts above the collars, and pendant finials. Over the westernmost bay are attached carved and gilded heraldic angels.