Church Of St James The Great

The Church of St James the Great is a parish church dating to 1844-46, designed by EH Shellard. The chancel was enlarged in 1897 by Naylor and Sale, and a vestry was added around 1900. The church is constructed of coursed millstone grit with ashlar dressings, covered by Welsh slate roofs. It features coped gables with kneelers, cross finials, and four octagonal nave pinnacles. The architectural style is Gothic Revival.

The church’s plan incorporates a five-bay nave with north and south aisles, a north-west tower with a spire, a south-west porch and chapel, and south-east and south-west chapels and a vestry. The four-stage tower has angle buttresses with set-offs. The first stage is blind, while the second and third stages contain single lancet windows. The fourth stage has paired lancet bell openings, topped with four corner pinnacles and a tall octagonal stone spire with lucarnes. The west front has a triple-arched entrance, partially blocked to form a window; the remaining arches contain plank doors with strap hinges and overlights. Above the entrance are eight lancets with shafts and a continuous hoodmould, culminating in a rose window.

The south-west porch and chapel are two stories high, with angle buttresses and set-offs. A pointed arched doorway with double doors is located on the north side, and the first floor has continuous lancets, some blind, with a set back frieze featuring trefoils. The nave’s side elevations each have five pairs of tall lancets between buttresses. The south chapel is set transeptally, featuring three graduated lancets and a small, shouldered arch doorway to the left. The north chapel has two two-light pointed arch windows with a continuous hoodmould and a coped parapet. The chancel’s east end is chamfered, with tall two-light pointed arch windows containing Y tracery and a continuous sill band, alongside a single, similar three-light window to the east.

Inside, original north and south galleries have been removed, and the west gallery altered. The five-bay nave arcades have piers with clustered shafts and foliated capitals. Segmental arches lead to the chancel, and two-centred arches to the chapels. The roof features open arcading above the principal ties. Furnishings include wooden linenfold panelling in the sanctuary, a reredos with a central carved Crucifixion scene, altar rails with wrought-iron supports, and choir stalls with closed backs, open frontals, and fleur-de-lys finials. There is also an eagle lectern and an elaborate wooden pulpit on a clustered marble shaft base, with relief carvings dating to 1895. Stained glass windows include examples from the 1890s in the north aisle and others, reputedly from Morris & Co., dating to around 1930.