Church Of St James

Church of St James

Parish church built in 1832–3 by Thomas Jones on the site of an earlier church, with alterations made in 1891 by George Vialls. The building combines ashlar with Welsh slate roof and snecked rock-faced sandstone with ashlar dressings and plain tiled roofs. Parapets at the gable ends are topped with cross finials.

The church comprises a west tower with south porch, a three-bay nave, and a two-bay chancel with a north vestry and organ chamber. It is designed in Perpendicular style with hood moulds and large head stops on the west window of the tower, bell-chamber openings, south entrance, and nave windows.

The west tower, built in 1832, has three stages with plinth and three strings. Set-back buttresses with offsets are visible on each stage. The west window contains three lights, while the second stage has a lancet with a square hood and returns to the north and south elevations. The belfry stage features two-light louvred bell-chamber openings, and an embattled parapet sits above, though the corner pinnacles are now missing. The tower stairs project to the north-east of the tower and have three loopholes beneath the second stage string and a pair of loopholes above it at the west side. The tower originally had north and south doorways; the surviving south entrance has a canted porch added in 1891 with a parapet stepped at the centre with a cross finial. The archway beneath has a hood and imposts with a rectangular light with cusped tracery to the left side. Within the south entrance, the spandrels contain panels of blind tracery within the square hood.

The nave, built in 1832, is broad and unaisled with an embattled parapet. Buttresses with offsets mark the bay divisions, and set-back buttresses are positioned at the west end. A narrow doorway to the tower stairs lies between the north-west pair of buttresses. Both elevations have a two-light window in the easternmost bay and two three-light windows.

The chancel, built in 1891, has a five-light east window with stepped sill string. Two 13th-century style two-light windows appear in the south elevation with continuous hood mould. The north elevation has a cusped lancet at its eastern end, and from its western end projects a gabled vestry and organ chamber with a small hipped-roofed projection to the east side. The north gable end features two pairs of cusped rectangular lights, a three-light square-headed window with a quatrefoil opening above in the gable apex, and a door with a cambered head. Steps with spear-headed railings lead down to a basement door. A blocked opening appears in the west side, with a two-light and a single-light opening on the east side of the hipped projection.

The interior contains a round-headed chancel arch of one shafted order and a four-centred tower arch, both of 1891. The nave roof has slender hammer-beam trusses, while the chancel has a panelled barrel roof. The chancel features a large four-centred archway into the organ chamber, and the south windows have uncarved blocks for capitals. A cusped pointed arched aumbry is present. The octagonal font dates from 1832. Other fittings date from around 1891 and are slightly influenced by the Arts and Crafts style.

Memorials include an oval late 18th-century memorial to the Crump family in the tower base and early and mid-19th-century memorials to the Clutton and Clutton Brock families. The church displays remarkably competent and archaeologically accurate Perpendicular detailing for its 1832 date, with the windows of the tower and nave being of particular architectural interest.