Church Of St James And St John

Church of St James and St John

Parish church dating from the 13th century with additions and alterations in the 14th and 15th centuries, restored in the 19th century. Built of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, with slate and plain tile roofs. The building comprises a west tower, nave with north and south aisles, south porch, chancel and vestry.

The three-stage western tower is built of ashlar with a deeply moulded plinth, a band at the second stage, and a moulded cornice with central gargoyle and coped parapet. Full-height angle buttresses flank the tower. The first stage on the south face is blank. The second stage has a flat-headed chamfered lancet. The third stage contains a two-light reticulated tracery bell opening set within a pointed and moulded double-chamfered arch. A built-in stair turret with two small lancets sits at the western corner. The west face has a single pointed lancet in a double-chamfered surround at the first stage, with a small pointed niche above. The third stage repeats the bell opening pattern. The north and east faces similarly feature bell openings at the third stage.

The north aisle has a chamfered plinth and quoins, with a blank west wall. The north wall contains a doorway with plank door in a chamfered segment-headed surround with moulded impost blocks, and to its left a two-light panel-tracery window in a shallow pointed deeply chamfered surround. The east wall displays a two-light cusped intersecting-tracery window in a pointed deeply chamfered surround. A clerestory matching on both north and south sides contains three sets of three-light windows with a central higher light in shallow pointed chamfered surrounds with hoods, topped by a plain coped parapet extending over the eastern gable and finished with a cross finial.

The chancel has a chamfered plinth. Its north wall features a chamfered lancet with hood, and projects a 19th-century vestry with ashlar coped gable with moulded kneelers, a large gable stack corbelled out twice on sets of three corbels, and two cusped and chamfered lancets. The east wall has gabled angle buttresses with curved figures adorning the gables and ogee cups above. The east window is a three-light reticulated-tracery window with applied roll moulding in an ogee-topped surround with finial. Above are two lengths of carved frieze depicting the Last Judgement, with the left showing figures climbing from graves and the right depicting the mouth of hell. Above this is a small vacant niche. The south wall contains a central priest's door in a segment-headed chamfered surround, a single chamfered lancet with hood to the right, and a small two-light flat-headed window in a chamfered surround beyond.

The south aisle's east wall has a three-light panel-tracery window in a chamfered surround with segment head. The south wall has gabled angle buttresses and another three-light panel-tracery window in a chamfered surround with segment head. The south aisle's west wall features a single ogee-headed chamfered lancet.

The south porch has ashlar coped gables with kneelers and a cross finial. The pointed arched opening has a chamfered arch with moulded hood and octagonal shaft responds with moulded bases and capitals. Stone benches occupy the porch. The inner doorway has double plank doors in a pointed and moulded double-chamfered arch with hood.

The interior contains two-bay double-chamfered nave arcades. The south arcade has an octagonal pier and responds. The north arcade features a quatrefoil-shafted pier decorated with dogtooth and keeled-shafted responds, all with moulded bases and capitals. The tower arch is double-chamfered with inner keeled responds and outer shafts, the left with stiff-leaf capitals and the right with moulded capitals. The former roof line is visible above. The chancel arch is double-chamfered with moulded bases, capitals and a hood. Two ornate ogee-headed niches flank the east window. The south aisle contains a chamfered pointed-arched piscina and an ornate niche to the right of the east window. A 19th-century circular bowl-and-stem ashlar font stands in the interior. 19th-century wooden roofs, benches, altar rail and pulpit are present, along with choir stalls mostly dating to the 19th century with some 15th-century bench ends.

The church contains numerous monuments. In the north aisle stands a fine large marble wall monument with fluted Corinthian pilasters supported on brackets, an open segmental pediment above and scroll sides, erected by Lucy Oldfield in 1715 to Anthony Oldfield, his wife Elizabella, and their four daughters Mary, Elizabeth, Lucy and Margaret. The chancel holds a stone wall tablet with fluted Doric pilasters and pediment to John and Lucy Todkill (1740), and two unusually carved stone tablets to Gilby Todkill (1756) and Eleanor Todkill (1787). A stone wall tablet with pediment to William Thacker (1788) was made by John Bourn of Sleaford. An incomplete marble wall tablet commemorates Elizabeth Groundman (1708). A bronze plaque honours those who died in the First World War. Additional 19th-century tablets commemorate John Todkill (1806), Mary Kaye (1837) and Elizabeth Farmer (1847), and a brass plate remembers Charles Clarke (1915).