Church of St James

Church of St James

This church originated in the 12th century and was developed through the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. The chancel was rebuilt in 1845 and an organ chamber was added in 1894. The building is constructed of magnesian limestone ashlar with some mixed sandstone and limestone rubble, and is roofed in Welsh slate and stone slate.

The plan consists of a west tower, a three-bay nave with a south aisle and porch, a north organ chamber, and a two-bay chancel.

The tower is in three stages and displays Perpendicular styling in ashlar. It has a chamfered plinth, a moulded band, and diagonal west buttresses. The west window is of three lights with head-stops to the hoodmould. String courses run below and above a plain second stage. The belfry stage features louvred three-light windows with apron panels, and below the embattled parapet runs a string course. The parapet has eight crocketed pinnacles.

In the nave, the porch in bay one has a raised keystone to a square-headed doorway beneath a sundial inscribed 1828 with the names of churchwardens Thomas Kay and Tho. Dyson. Inside the porch is a tall chamfered 12th-century south door with six crosses to the lintel soffit and a cable mould around the tympanum carved with geometrical ornament. A corbelled hood above this door is truncated by the porch structure.

The 14th-century south aisle has a later east buttress and south windows of two ogee lights in quoined, square-headed openings. The aisle's east window bears a mass dial on its jamb and displays Decorated tracery. The aisle copings rise to an embattled parapet level with the nave.

On the north side, a blocked door lies beneath a two-light window. To its east is a deeply recessed window of three Tudor-arched lights beneath a square hoodmould. Beyond this is a blocked two-light square-faced mullioned window, and in bay three stands the gabled organ chamber with a two-light window having quatrefoils.

The chancel has a chamfered plinth and diagonal east buttresses. A blocked segmental-headed priests' door is flanked by trefoil-headed lancets. The three-light east window features Decorated tracery with head-stops to the hoodmould. A string course runs beneath the ashlar parapet, which has roll-moulded copings and an east cross.

The interior contains a double-chamfered pointed tower arch with moulded capitals. The south arcade has octagonal piers and matching responds with moulded capitals and double-chamfered arches. Bay three contains arches of a former or proposed crossing, with the arches to the west and south being double-chamfered and a 19th-century north arch leading into the organ chamber. The south aisle wall has a trefoil-headed piscina to the east of a chamfered floor-tomb recess.

The chancel arch dates to the 13th century and is treble-chamfered with the inner order on keeled responds. An Easter sepulchre with cusped tracery is set beneath a moulded arch with crockets and finials. The roofs are 19th century.

The church contains three 16th-century carved panels incorporated into a later pulpit, one featuring a kneeler and another bearing the initials 'B.S' for Brian Sharpe, vicar from 1565 to 1576.

Monuments include stone benefactions tablets on the south aisle wall. One is a corniced and architraved plaque commemorating a gift of £60 per annum by John Gleadhall (died 1688). A wall monument over the aisle pier honours Betta Sheppard (died 1766) and others, and features an open segmental pediment with ball finials and painted arms of George I dated 1724. A brass behind the pulpit commemorates Ralph Purslove (died 1726). In the chancel, a cross slab lies to the left of the altar and a grave slab to Nathaniel Eyre (died 1717) is positioned to the right.