Church Of St James

Church of St James, Salt and Enson

A parish church built between 1840 and 1842 by Thomas Trubshaw, architect of Haywood, largely at the expense of the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury. Trubshaw (1802–42) came from a dynasty of Haywood architects dating back to the early 18th century and was known as an antiquary and picturesque Gothic Revival designer.

The church is constructed of coursed rock-faced local Weston Bank sandstone with a graded slate roof. It comprises a nave and chancel under a single roof, with a south porch, north vestry, and east bellcote. The exterior, which has a cemetery chapel character, is dominated by a tall belfry and executed primarily in Tudor-Gothic style with straight-headed windows throughout. The south side features 7-light and 1-light nave windows and a 3-light chancel window. The north side has 2-light, 3-light, and single-light nave windows. The tall south porch has an entrance with 2 orders of nook shafts and large head stops to the label, with decorative masonry of high quality. A plain chamfered doorway serves the nave on the south side. Above the south chancel doorway is a heraldic lion in relief. The east end displays an over-scaled rose window with a shallow lean-to projection below it, flanked by lancets. The gabled bellcote contains 2 bells. The west wall is pierced by 3 stepped lancets with Decorated tracery. The north-east vestry has a north doorway with a pointed overlight.

The interior is spacious and lofty with a considered and effective overall design. The nave features a 5-bay hammerbeam roof on corbelled brackets, enriched with pendants. The tripartite chancel arch has a tall central arch with an inner order on foliage corbels, with steep outer arches having foliage capitals on nook shafts. The chancel is rib vaulted with a central boss and has shallow bays on the east, north, and south to create the impression of a crossing—a surprising effect for a church of this modest scale. Walls are scribed render. The floor, where visible, consists of red and black tiles, with wood block floors beneath the pews.

The wooden screen running across the chancel arch was brought from Alton in 1908 and was designed in 1892 by John Pollen, made at the School of Woodcarving, South Kensington. The font is a round bowl on a quatrefoil stem. The furnishings installed in 1892 include benches with moulded edges and arm rests, and a polygonal pulpit. The stone altar has quatrefoil panels with encaustic tiles, which are matched by similar tiles forming the reredos. In the north-west nave window are stained-glass armorial bearings made by William Wailes in 1853.

Beside the porch is a discarded octagonal font bowl with a rotten wooden cover.

The design is notable for its unusual arrangement: the rose window and bellcote are positioned at the east rather than the west end, and with the north vestry, the north-east perspective offers what would conventionally be expected of a south-west perspective. The interior maintains this conceit, with the chancel vaulted like a tower base at the centre of a notional crossing.

The interior was altered in 1892 by Nicholas Joyce, architect of Stafford, who provided new floors, pews, and pulpit.