Parish Church of St James

Parish Church of St James, Greenstead Green

This parish church was built in 1845 in the Decorated style, designed by George Gilbert Scott. It is constructed of coursed flint and pebbles with limestone dressings, roofed with purple-brown fishscale tiles with a decorative ridge. The spire appears to be made of gault brick moulded to imitate concave-edged tiles, and the porch is timber-framed.

The building comprises a nave, chancel, west tower and spire, a north vestry and boiler-house, and a south porch.

The chancel contains a three-light window with tracery in the east wall, a similar two-light window in the north wall, and two similar two-light windows in the south wall. All have moulded labels and headstops outside and inside. A doorway to the north vestry has chamfered jambs and a two-centred arch. A doorway to the west of it, leading to a stair to the pulpit, also has chamfered jambs and a shouldered arch. The chancel arch comprises two chamfered orders, the outer orders resting on nook-shafts with 14th-century-style moulded capitals and bases, and the inner order on similar moulded corbels with foliate carving below. A moulded label with headstops runs across to the west. The chancel roof spans one bay with twenty arch-braced collars and a collar-purlin, forming a two-centred boarded ceiling.

The nave has four similar two-light windows in the north wall and three in the south wall, all with moulded labels and headstops on the outside only. The south doorway has a double-chamfered two-centred arch with a moulded label featuring foliate stops. The nave roof spans four bays in single hammerbeam construction with crossed arch-braces at half-bay intervals; all braces are moulded. There are two butt-purlins in each pitch with plain arched wind-bracing. All corbels are carved in various floriate and foliate patterns.

The tower arch is chamfered in three orders to the east and two to the west, with the outer orders continuous and the inner order resting on corbels similar to those of the chancel arch. A moulded label with headstops extends to the east. The tower has two square stages with angle buttresses and a southeast stair-turret, surmounted by an octagonal bell-chamber stage. Crocketed pinnacles, each with a miniature flying buttress, mask the junction, and each face of this stage has a two-light opening. The octagonal spire has a roll-moulding at each arris and a gabled louvre on each cardinal face.

The south porch is in 14th-century style, with a moulded two-centred outer arch featuring round shafts with moulded capitals and bases. To each side is a one-light trefoiled window. The east and west walls each contain six trefoiled windows. The roof is framed in five cants with cusped bargeboards.

The church retains important original fittings. To each side of the east window is a set of Commandments with an elaborately carved, cusped, crocketed and foliate surround. An octagonal stone pulpit in the northeast corner of the nave displays five exposed faces, each containing a trefoiled niche holding statuettes of Christ and the Evangelists. The moulded rim is decorated with ball-flower ornament. The pulpit is mounted on a moulded corbel with a foliate pendant and is accessed from a moulded trefoiled doorway at the head of a short stair from the chancel. The octagonal font has a carved recess on each face, a moulded rim with ball-flower ornament, and a moulded base. It retains its original crenellated and crocketed wooden cover. The church also preserves its original altar screen, chancel screen, choir stalls, and pews.