Church Of St James

Church of St James

A large Gothic Revival parish church built in 1866–7 to Kidbrooke Park Road, Greenwich, designed by the London architects Newman and Billing. The building served the rapidly expanding mid-Victorian population of Woolwich and was funded by private donations totalling approximately £7,000, with numerous subsequent benefactions added for embellishment. Following extensive Second World War damage, the church underwent major restoration in 1955 carried out by Holliday and Greenwood, including reroofing and replacement of the lost stone spire with a new 1950s spirelet.

Constructed of coursed semi-dressed ragstone with freestone dressings and copper-clad roofs, the church comprises a wide nave with wide north and south aisles, a north porch, a north-east tower, a chancel, and a south-east polygonal vestry with its own eastern porch.

The exterior displays Early English and Geometrical Gothic styling throughout most of the fenestration, drawing on designs of around 1300. The east end of the chancel, facing the main road, features a large five-light window with Geometrical tracery. The chancel side windows are two-light with Geometrical tracery incorporating three spherical triangles or circular trefoils in the head. The three-stage tower on the north, attached to the west part of the chancel, has pairs of two-light belfry windows with pointed tracery in circa-1300 style, a foliage frieze below the battlements, and a slender 1950s spirelet replacing the original 160-foot-high stone spire. At the north-west corner is a stair-turret-cum-buttress arrangement incorporating complex geometric details. The six-bay lean-to aisles have two-light windows with varied medieval-inspired tracery. The clerestory windows are formed of spherical triangles incorporating triple-cusped sub-triangles or circular trefoils, mirroring the chancel side window motifs. The south doorway, blocked in the 20th century, retains glazing and Y-tracery in its head. The aisle bays are divided by buttresses with offsets, each containing a two-light window with ornate tracery. The west face of the nave has a pointed doorway and above it a large six-light window of 15th-century Perpendicular character, contrasting with the earlier styling of the remaining fenestration. The north porch, with its roof cutting into that of the north aisle, features a plain parapet roof, chamfered walling at the angle, and a circular foiled window in the north wall—details that find no structural expression internally.

The interior is spacious and light, with a broad nave and aisles, minimal stained glass, and reduced 19th-century seating. Wall surfaces are painted white except for cream-coloured piers, enhancing the luminosity. The six-bay nave has alternating round and octagonal piers with carved leaf and fruit capitals. The arches have chamfered and hollow mouldings beneath hoodmoulds with head-stops. Between the arches are richly carved corbels supporting the springing of the lower roof vaulting, which arches over the clerestory lights. Above is a plain two-tier roof divided into rectangular panels. The chancel is as wide as the nave, marked from it by an arch rising from highly florid corbels, trefoil responds, and elaborate capitals. The chancel roof is keel-shaped with rectangular panelling and painted bright blue with white ribs, as is the nave roof. On the north side of the chancel is a traceried arch leading to the organ chamber-cum-vestry beneath the tower, its enrichment featuring large musically themed corbels depicting David playing his harp (west) and St Cecilia with her organ (east). The east end of the chancel is now sparse, the 19th-century reredos having been removed, leaving three blind trefoiled arches flanking blank walling. The aisles have lean-to roofs with plain trusses.

The fixtures span from the 19th to 20th centuries. The central section of the original 19th-century reredos, depicting the Supper at Emmaus, has been relocated to the east wall of the south aisle. The 19th-century nave seating, though reduced in area, remains original, featuring unusually shaped ends with attractive little elbows decorated in a whorl pattern. The font of 1898 represents an angel holding out a large shell, modelled on the celebrated prototype by the neo-Classical Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844) in Copenhagen Cathedral, a design reused in several British churches around 1900. The font appears to have been moved from the west end of the south aisle, fitted out in 1926 (the date of the traceried panelling in that area), with additional panelling to the east dated 1937. A large wooden First World War memorial stands at the east end of the baptistry. The chancel features extensive Edwardian traceried panelling with mid-20th-century furniture. The west window of the south aisle is by Kempe and Company (death dates 1902 and 1921). Post-Second World War stained glass in the east and west windows dates to 1955 and is by Carl J Edwards.

The architects Arthur Shean Newman (1828–73) and Arthur Billing (1824–96) formed their London partnership around 1860 and maintained an extensive practice principally devoted to church work, mostly in London. Both served as surveyors—Newman and Billing to Guy's Hospital and to St Olave's District Board of Works. Billing had trained in the office of the prominent Gothic Revival architect Benjamin Ferrey from 1847 before establishing independent practice in 1849. Following Newman's death in 1873, Billing took his son as partner in 1890. St James's is said to have the largest footprint of any church in Woolwich. Though not directly struck during the Second World War, it sustained extensive damage and was reroofed in the 1950s, when new stained glass was provided and the stone spire was lost. The building today represents a synthesis of 19th-century structural fabric, later 19th and early 20th-century enhancements, and substantial 1950s refurbishment.