Cathedral Church Of St James

The Cathedral Church of St James is a parish church that became the Cathedral church of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in 1914. It was built in the early 16th century on an earlier site by John Wastell, the master mason at the Abbey of St Edmund. The church underwent alterations in the 19th century by George Gilbert Scott, which were partly replaced by further extensions in the 1960s and 1970s by SE Dykes Bower. The exterior is faced in coursed squared limestone on the south and west sides, except for the clerestory, which is made of rubble flint. The nave has a steeply-pitched stone slate roof.

The church has a plan that includes a nave, north and south aisles, a crossing, transepts, a chancel, and an incomplete central tower. The exterior features a cloister range on the north side. The nave, which began construction in 1503, was completed around 1550 and consists of nine bays. There are eighteen 2-light windows with cusped heads in the clerestory. Each aisle has nine bays with a range of 3-light windows that are panelled and cusped, with stepped full-height buttresses between them. Doors are located below the windows in the 4th and 8th bays. The church has battlemented parapets, a 5-light transomed window at the embattled west end of each aisle, and a large transomed 7-light west window in the nave with a decorated base. The aisles feature diagonal buttresses with ornate panelling.

The pinnacled west gable was designed by Scott, while the chancel, rebuilt to his design between 1865 and 1869, was demolished to accommodate the work of the 1960s, which is still not fully completed. This later work is in a Tudoresque style, using a combination of Clipsham and Doulting stone with flint flushwork panels on the outer walls.

Inside, the nave is very high and features arcades of nine bays on both the north and south sides. The piers are lozenge-shaped with four thin shafts and four broad hollows in the diagonals. The brightly-painted roof, replaced by Scott, has arched-braced hammer-beam trusses arranged in 18 short bays. Every alternate hammer-beam features a carved figure bearing a shield, and there is a heavily-decorated cornice and frieze.