Church Of St James

Church of St James

Parish church of Late 11th-century origin, substantially rebuilt and extended in the 14th century, with further alterations in the 15th century and restored in 1864 by G Bodley. The building is constructed of sandstone rubble with sandstone ashlar and tufa dressings, with machine-tiled roofs featuring decorative ridge tiles. The plan comprises a west tower, three-bay nave with north chapel, south aisle and south porch, and a two-bay chancel. A gable-end parapet with cross finial rises at the east end.

West Tower

The tower is mid-14th century and four stages tall, undivided externally with a moulded plinth. The lower stage contains a pair of cusped ogee-arched lights in the west elevation. The second stage has a cusped ogee-arched light on all sides except the east, which instead has a loophole opening into the nave. The third stage features a narrow square-headed light on three sides and an east doorway into the nave roof. The belfry stage displays a cusped pointed louvred bell chamber opening on each side. Above rises an embattled parapet that partly conceals a shallow pyramidal roof crowned with a ball finial and weathervane. The tower stairs in the north-east corner are lit by four loopholes.

Nave

The nave dates to the 11th century. Its north wall retains original herringbone masonry, and contains a 15th-century two-light window with a square head. The east bay of the original two-bay 15th-century north aisle was demolished in the 19th century, though the outline of the archway and a piscina remain visible externally. The north chapel was created from the surviving west bay of the north aisle and features a lean-to roof and a reset three-light 14th-century window with a square head (only the jambs are original). The east wall is 19th century. The south aisle was added in the early 14th century with a separate gabled roof and angle buttresses with offsets at the corners, largely rebuilt. It contains two large restored three-light windows with hoodmoulds in the south wall, the western one having head stops to its hoodmould. A similar window appears at the east end and a two-light window at the west end. The south porch is mid-19th century, gabled and timber-framed on a tall rubble base. It has scalloped bargeboards, a pointed moulded archway with quatrefoil reliefs in the spandrels, flanked by cusped pointed openings with transoms and relief decoration in their spandrels. The side elevations feature arch-braced wall-plates beneath a brattished beam above four openings with octagonal mullions. The south doorway has heavy quarter-round moulded jambs and a two-centred head. At the east gable end of the nave are two two-light square-headed 15th-century windows set either side of the chancel roof.

Chancel

The chancel was rebuilt and lengthened in the early 14th century and appears narrower than its predecessor. Diagonal buttresses with offsets rise at the east end. The 14th-century east window contains three lights with reticulated tracery. The north wall has two pairs of 14th-century cusped lights with quatrefoils above. The south wall has been partly refaced and contains two two-light windows with a 14th-century doorway between them, featuring moulded jambs and a pointed head.

Interior

The north arcade comprises 15th-century two bays with pointed arches of two moulded orders and a central octagonal column with a 19th-century embattled capital (the eastern archway is blocked). The early 14th-century south arcade has two bays with pointed arches of two orders springing from an octagonal column and semi-octagonal responds. East of the arcade is a 15th or 16th-century four-centred opening, possibly formed from rood loft stairs. Above at rood loft level is a 14th-century recess with a cusped head. West of the arcade is an 11th-century round-headed light. The restored early 14th-century chancel arch is two-centred with three orders, the inner mould and outer two hollow-chamfered, with semi-octagonal responds. The two-centred tower arch has three continuous orders. North of the tower arch is a 15th-century doorway with chamfered jambs and two-centred head.

The nave features an early 15th-century hammer-beam roof with arch-braced collars forming segmental arches and cusped wind braces creating a row of lozenge-shaped panels. The south aisle has a 14th-century roof with arch-braced collar trusses, V-struts above the collar, and alternate cusped arch-braced tie beams. Beneath the north wall plate is a row of stone corbels. The chancel roof is 19th century.

Fittings and Memorials

In the east jamb of the south-east chancel window is a 14th-century piscina and a sunk panel with a cusped head. A 19th-century double sedilia lies beneath the south-east window with a central 14th-century stone arm. Fifteenth-century choir stalls are returned at the west end in a 17th-century arrangement, featuring blind cusped ogee-arched panels and buttressed standards with poppyhead finials. A 14th-century piscina with cusped head stands in the south aisle, as does a 14th-century stoup to the east of the south doorway. A medieval octagonal stone font with hollowed under-edge, octagonal stem and base is positioned in the south aisle. A 16th-century decagonal timber pulpit with seven linenfold panelled sides and central octagonal post with radiating struts is present. An early 17th-century altar table with turned legs stands at the east end of the nave. In the south aisle are a carved cherub head, a stone mortar and part of an octagonal stone bowl, all medieval. Two hatchments appear on the west wall of the nave, and within the tower is a 17th-century panelled cupboard, a 17th-century stair door, and a medieval altar slab with incised crosses re-used as the west window sill.

The chancel contains a floor slab to Alexander Clogie, vicar, who died in 1698. The north chapel has numerous memorials to the Davies and Kevill Davies families of Croft Castle and Wigmore Hall dating from 1738 to 1832. A mid-18th-century Davies memorial is in the tower, and several 19th-century memorials appear in the nave.

The south aisle east window retains fragments of 14th-century glass. Mid-19th-century chancel glass is by D Evans of Shrewsbury.