Church Of St James

Church of St James

A substantial parish church with origins in the early 13th century, substantially developed through the medieval period and restored in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The church comprises an aisled nave, chancel, west tower, north vestry and south porch. The nave is five bays long with a two-bay chancel. Construction is in regular coursed and ashlar sandstone of various types, with the porch built of regular coursed limestone. Tile roofs feature 19th-century coped gable parapets and cross finials; the south aisle has a lead lean-to roof with moulded cornice and parapet.

The earliest work dates from the early 13th century, evident in the nave arcade. The south aisle was added in the late 13th century and subsequently altered around 1300. The north aisle also dates from the late 13th century. The chancel is 14th-century work, whilst the tower is dated to the 14th or 15th century. The south clerestory is 15th or 16th-century. The church was substantially restored in 1865 by G. T. Robinson, when roofs were renewed and a vestry added. The tower was restored and a porch added in 1907.

The chancel has a splay and moulded plinth, stepped down on the east wall, with angle and south buttresses of three offsets. The east window is a four-light Perpendicular design with renewed tracery. Windows throughout generally have hood moulds. The south doorway has a deep hollow-chamfered ogee arch and a 19th-century plank door. Two two-light windows to north and south have renewed Decorated tracery. The vestry has a two-light mullioned east window with decorative chamfering and a large external stack to the north.

The aisles and porch have splay plinths. The porch has buttresses of two offsets flush with the front and an Early English-style doorway with a moulded arch and nook shafts, with double-leaf plank doors. The porch windows are straight-headed with two ogee lights. The south aisle has diagonal and south buttresses with splayed offsets, the south-east buttress featuring a gablet. Windows on the east side and second bay from the east have circa 1300 cusped Y-tracery with roll-mouldings, largely restored to the east. A large 15th or 16th-century straight-headed south-east window of three Tudor-arched lights is present. Windows to the east and west of the porch and to the west have 19th-century geometrical tracery. The clerestory has straight-headed three-light Perpendicular windows.

The north aisle has angle and two north buttresses of two offsets. Three-light east and west windows have reticulated tracery, with renewed two-light and three-light north-east straight-headed Perpendicular windows. A blocked doorway of two chamfered orders is visible.

The Perpendicular tower, of two high stages, has a splay and moulded plinth with diagonal buttresses of four offsets. The top stage has an ogee niche. The west doorway has a Tudor arch with an elaborate moulded hood mould showing remains of crocketing, with a studded and panelled door having applied tracery. A large three-light window with panel tracery (largely renewed) has a hood mould with finial, crocketing and head stops. The second stage has a small trefoiled ogee opening with crocketed gable. The south side has similar windows with remains of carved beasts associated with the staircase in the west corner and a painted clock face to the second stage. The bell-chamber openings are Tudor-arched two-light designs with transom and louvres. An embattled parapet has crocketed pinnacles.

The interior is plastered. The chancel has a boarded four-bay barrel roof with moulded arched braces and moulded stone corbels and cornice. The north and chancel arches date from 1865 and are in the Early English style. The north arch has two elaborately moulded orders, the inner on colonnettes with stiff-leaf capitals. A south aumbry has an ogee arch and leaf carving. A squint is present in the south-west corner. The chancel arch of 1865 has three moulded orders and composite piers with large stiff-leaf capitals on high pedestals.

The nave has a five-bay arched brace roof with carved stone corbels. The north arcade is early 13th-century work and the south arcade is late 13th-century, both featuring five bays of two chamfered orders with octagonal piers and half-octagon responds. The south arcade has rudimentary crocket capitals whilst the north arcade has moulded capitals. Carved heads between arches are all 19th-century except that to the north-west. The tower arch has two chamfered orders. The north aisle has an arched brace roof. A late 13th-century tomb recess in the north wall has a moulded inner and chamfered outer orders with remains of shafts. The south aisle has a lean-to roof.

Fittings include a font carved and given by Richard Hayward of Weston Hall in 1789, with a small white marble bowl carved with reliefs of the Baptism of Christ and other subjects on three dolphin feet. The base is made from an antique Roman column drum of coloured marble with an oval panel bearing an inscription and date. An altar slab, now mounted on the chancel north wall, has a small oval relief of the Last Supper by Hayward. Box pews were installed in 1821. Encaustic tiles and other fittings date from circa 1865. The east window is stained glass dated 1867.

Monuments include a wall monument in the north aisle to Hayward's parents, dated 1781, showing a relief of a mourning woman surrounded by Gothic ruins, with below a sarcophagus inscription panel and mourning angels. Another monument to Mary Hayward (died 1788) and Richard Hayward (died 1800), possibly partly by Hayward, features a relief of a mourning woman by a sarcophagus with an oval panel below.