Cathedral Church Of St James

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL8564SE ANGEL HILL 639-1/8/187 (East side) 07/08/52 Cathedral Church of St James

GV I

Parish church; became the Cathedral church of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in 1914. Early C16, on an earlier site; by John Wastell, master mason at the Abbey of St Edmund. C19 alterations by GG Scott, partly replaced by further extensions of 1960-70 by SE Dykes Bower. Faced in coursed squared limestone on the south and west apart from the clerestory which is in rubble flint. A steeply-pitched stone slate roof to the nave. PLAN: nave, north and south aisles, crossing and transepts, chancel and an incomplete central tower. EXTERIOR: cloister range on the north. The nave, begun in 1503, was completed c1550. In 9 bays. A range of eighteen 2-light windows with cusped heads to the clerestory. 9 bays to each aisle with a range of 3-light windows, panelled and cusped, and stepped full-height buttresses between them. Doors below the windows in the 4th and 8th bays. Battlemented parapets. A 5-light transomed window to the embattled west end of each aisle and a very large transomed 7-light west window to the nave with a decorated base. Diagonal buttresses with ornate panelling to the aisles. The pinnacled west gable was designed by Scott, but the chancel, rebuilt to his design in 1865-9, was demolished to make way for the work of the 1960s, still not fully completed. This is in a Tudoresque style using a combination of Clipsham and Doulting stone with flint flushwork panels to the outer walls. INTERIOR of the nave is very high with arcades of 9 bays to north and south. The piers are lozenge-shaped with 4 thin shafts and 4 broad hollows in the diagonals. The brightly-painted roof, replaced by Scott, has arched-braced hammer-beam trusses and is in 18 short bays. Every alternate hammer-beam has a carved figure bearing a shield. A heavily-decorated cornice and frieze. (BOE: Pevsner N: Radcliffe E: Suffolk: London: 1974-: 141).

Listing NGR: TL8559764117