Church Of St James

Church of St James

Parish church. Constructed in the 15th century, altered in the 17th century, and substantially restored in 1851 by R C Hussey for John H Galton with further alterations in 1860. Built of lias limestone rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings and plain tiled roofs. The church comprises a west tower, two-bay nave with transepts and south porch, and a two-bay chancel, executed predominantly in Perpendicular style.

The west tower dates to the 17th century and rises in three stages divided by strings, with diagonal buttresses that have offsets at the west end. The west window, a 3-light opening, is probably the original west window of the nave, reset when the tower was added. The second stage contains small rectangular lights in its north and south elevations. The belfry stage features paired louvred round-headed lights in each elevation, above which sits a pyramidal roof.

The 15th-century nave contains opposed doorways immediately west of low buttresses not bonded to the nave walls, suggesting that the original nave extended further. Windows in the nave and transepts are 15th-century, square-headed and restored. The north elevation has a 2-light window, and the north doorway, a single chamfered order with a 4-centred head, is now blocked. The south elevation displays a 3-light window with a matching entrance doorway. To the right of the south door is a small niche once occupied by a stoup. Both transepts have a gable end with a 3-light pointed-arched window and 2-light windows in both side elevations. The west window of the north transept is probably a later insertion. The south porch was rebuilt in 1860 as a gabled timber frame on a sandstone base, with moulded pierced and scalloped bargeboards, arch-braced roof trusses, and 5-light splayed wood-mullioned openings on each side.

The chancel was rebuilt in 1861. It contains a 3-light 19th-century east window with a 4-centred head. The north elevation has a 2-light window, and the south elevation features a 2-light westernmost window, a rectangular light, and a door with a 4-centred head. All south-facing work incorporates reset 15th-century material.

Interior features include a pointed tower arch and a pointed north transept arch. There is no chancel arch; instead the walls return on both sides to the wider nave. The south transept contains a 15th-century moulded timber archway, the east post of which stands short of the east jamb to provide access to the pulpit and probably originally to accommodate the roof-loft stair. The roofs are 19th-century, plastered with ornamental arch-braced collar trusses.

The chancel displays two moulded corbels flanking the east window, a pointed-arched piscina with corbelled basin, and 17th-century altar rails. The font is recut 15th-century work, octagonal with alternating roses and fetterlocks carved on the lower edge of the basin. The oak pews incorporate re-used 17th-century woodwork. A 15th-century dug-out parish chest is located in the south porch, and a 17th-century dug-out parish chest in the tower.

Memorials include a mid-19th-century wall memorial in the chancel to the Tookey family by P Hollins, a mid-19th-century brass in the nave to Robert Cameron Galton formerly from Hadzor church, and three ledger slabs in the chancel: one to John Crump, died 1657; a very worn slab to Bridget Patrick, died 1967; and one to George Parker, a rector murdered in 1806.

The chancel east window, north window, and south-east window retain fragments of 15th-century glass. Although substantially restored, the church retains a number of notable 15th-century features of particular architectural interest.