Church Of St James

The Church of St James is a building of group value dating back to the 12th century, with significant additions and alterations in the 13th and 15th centuries, and further changes in the 18th century. It was restored in 1856. The church is constructed from rubble stone with ashlar dressings, some areas rendered. The roofs are clad in banded plain and club-pattern clay tiles with ashlar coped gables and pierced ornamental ridge tiles.

The church comprises a chancel, a nave with a bellcote, and a south porch. The east window of the chancel features three restored stepped lancet windows beneath a brick rebuilt gable. The north wall is rendered with an Early English lancet window and a blocked doorway with a shallow pointed arch. The south wall is also rendered, with three cusped lancet windows from the 13th century, the central window featuring a carved head.

The nave’s north wall sits on an ashlar plinth and features a 15th-century twin oak mullion window with a carved cusped head set within an ogee pattern border and an Early English lancet window. The south wall has been rebuilt with a restored oak window to match the north side. The central south door is a renewed 12th-century feature with three orders of plain carving, a plain tympanum, pillars, and cushion capitals. To the left is a restored twin cusped lancet and a single Early English lancet. The west wall is set on an ashlar plinth capped with a roll-moulded course and features a projecting flat buttress with ashlar capping, incorporating a Norman lancet. A later bellcote has twin bell openings and a roof with corbelled and nailhead enriched eaves.

A 19th-century gabled tiled south porch has an arch-braced collar truss set on a traceried arcade and raised plinth.

Inside, the chancel has a three-bay single-purlin roof with king post trusses. A piscina with a fluted bowl and sedilia are set in a rere arch within the south wall. A 19th-century pointed chancel arch is supported by a simple shaft column. The nave has a restored arch-braced rafter roof with collar and ashlar detailing. A 18th-century pulpit features paneling. A memorial tablet with a cornice and pyramid, topped with an inscribed quatrefoil, commemorates Catherine, wife of John Hall, who died in 1775. A 14th-century font has a plain octagonal bowl, base, concave pedestal, and a 17th-century cover.