Parish Church of St James the Great

Parish Church of St James the Great

This is a parish church built in 1860-61 by the architect George Edward Pritchett (1824-1912), commissioned and largely funded by Reverend H F Johnson, whose memorial is in the chancel. The foundation stone was laid on 25 July 1860, and the church was completed and consecrated on 17 June 1861. The date '1860' appears on the rainwater heads and on brick at the north-east corner of the nave.

The church presents a striking interpretation of Early English Gothic in Pritchett's personal style. The exterior features a vast red tile roof above low buttressed walls constructed from uncoursed knapped flint with red brick bands. Stone lancet windows and dressings are set throughout. The brick bands run around the buttresses, and red brick and knapped flint voussoirs alternate in outer arches above the two-centred arched stone window and door heads.

The plan consists of a lofty four-bay nave with a south aisle and south porch. A south-west round tower, raised chancel, eastern apse, and south-west vestry with a rounded east end complete the composition. The rounded plan forms are reflected in the part-conical roof forms of the tower, apse and vestry, which flank the higher gabled nave roof. An octagonal bell stage and shingled fleche crown the tower without diminishing the nave's dominance. The aisle roof continues at a flatter pitch. There is no clerestory; the nave is lit by tall paired lancets on the north side and three lancets above the west door. These west-facing lancets have two recessed orders with dog-tooth ornamentation to the inner order, a cross worked in red brick on each side, and glazed ceramic plaques with alpha and omega symbols set into the bottom stone of each jamb.

The south porch has a large apsidal bulge on the west side, low trefoil-headed windows on the east, and an ornamental dog-tooth arch with an outer order featuring deep hollows springing from a recessed shaft with a foliate capital. Two ornate iron boot scrapers flank the entrance. The south door has two simple chamfered orders with hood-mould stops in the form of a king and bishop.

The interior is constructed in white brick with red brick bands. The chancel and apse are vaulted in brick and decorated with painted linear diaper and foliage patterns on vault and walls. The arcade carries red and white voussoirs on single slender stone columns with exaggeratedly large square foliate capitals, features prominently displayed in the wall paintings of St Albans Abbey. Between the chancel and vestry, two narrow arches spring from a central column beneath a wider arch, appearing to derive from similar sources, though here the column is repeated in the wall's depth as in a cloister. A polychrome encaustic tile floor covers the floor.

The jambs of the brick chancel arch feature dog-tooth arrises rising to a stone block at the springing of a chamfered brick arch with hood mould and foliate stops. A similar arch opens to the apse. A stone pulpit stands in the north-east corner, carved with a quatrefoil panel depicting a sower on its west face, a foliage-carved shelf corbel, a marble shaft, and an integral stone bible shelf, with stone steps on the south side. A square stone font on four marble pillars is carved with figures on each face.

The chancel and apse retain contemporary stained glass windows, with slightly later examples in the nave, aisle and vestry. The organ was made by 'Father' Willis around 1881 and renovated by Willis in 1946. A carved oak lectern by the Warham Guild dates to 1947. The original stone and marble reredos extends around the apse, featuring aumbrey and piscina in aedicules at the ends. It is carved with surface diaper and openwork cresting with four freestanding shafts carrying angels above. A marble figure panel stands behind the altar. Altar-rails and dwarf screens to the chancel were added by the Warham Guild in 1949. A gabled stone aedicule on the south face of the round tower houses a clockface set between spiral columns with a six-pointed star carved above.

Contemporary critics noted the church demonstrated considerable skill in its architect's approach. Pevsner later regarded it as "as original in its handling of Gothic forms as anything in the Art Nouveau of forty years later". The church is of considerable architectural interest, remaining virtually unaltered and retaining its original scheme of painted decoration, which counterpoints the white and red brickwork of the interior. It forms the key central building in a group of contemporary flint structures by Pritchett built for Reverend H F Johnson to serve as the centre of the newly created parish.