Church Of St James

Church of St James, New Bradwell

This is a church built between 1857 and 1860 by George Edmund Street, with a north aisle added in 1897 following Street's design.

The building is constructed of limestone rubble and ashlar with limestone dressings. The roof is laid with shaped slates in diagonal patterns, and red crested ridge tiles crown the chancel and its south aisle. A painted wooden bell-turret, added in 1883, sits on an incomplete northwest tower that rises only about seven metres above ground level.

The plan comprises a base of northwest tower, nave, lower chancel, north and south aisles, south porch, south chancel aisle, and north vestry. The exterior displays Street's characteristic muscular Gothic style. The west wall of the nave features a powerfully designed three-light window with narrow cusped lights and vigorous punched tracery in the head—a bold trefoil set within three tiny trefoil openings. The clerestory carries circular quatrefoils immediately below the nave eaves. The south aisle windows are varied but strongly detailed, with the east window containing five lights and three cusped circles in the head. The aisles are under lean-to roofs, while the south chancel aisle has its own gabled roof. The south porch is striking, with a tall roof that sweeps down low and compressed shafts carrying the outer moulded arch.

The interior's oldest feature is a reused Norman arch at the west end, removed from the ruined church of St Peter, Stantonbury and installed here around 1963. This arch has two orders of shafts with varied ornament including birds and beasts in the capitals, an outer order of chevron in the head, and an inner order of beakhead decoration. The arcades comprise four bays on the south and three bays on the north, plus an arch into the tower base. The piers are quatrefoil with fillets between the lobes; the arches are double-chamfered without a hood and have vigorous stiff-leaf capitals. Marble shafts rise to the clerestory windows with further foliage capitals. A two-bay arcade separates the chancel from its south aisle, with arches containing large cusps that die into the responds and central pier. The central pier has a high base and stubby paired marble shafts beneath a foliate capital. The chancel arch has marble shafts to its responds. The nave roof is a tie-beam roof with a crown-post to a longitudinal runner. The aisles have lean-to roofs; the chancel has a keeled roof. The walls are bare stone except in the chancel and its aisle, which have been whitened. Flooring is modern composition stone.

The seating, reduced since the 19th century, has shaped ends, and chancel stalls have been cleared. A circular pulpit, typical of Street's work, features 13th-century arcading around it. The font, also circular with 13th-century arcading, has been relocated to the east end. A large organ stands in the southeast nave arcade arch. The north aisle contains exceptional stained glass by Gerald Moira, probably made by Lowndes and Drury, with vibrant colouration in a style that points forward from the Arts and Crafts to Expressionism. The east window is by Christopher Webb (1950) and the west window by Harry Stammers (1964).

The church was built to serve New Bradwell, a settlement developed from 1852 following the establishment of railway works at Wolverton by the London and Birmingham Railway Company. The works initially built locomotives but concentrated on carriages from the 1860s onward. The church cost £4,430, of which £2,560 came from the London and North Western Railway Company's shareholders. Street designed a school and church hall to the south, forming part of a complex with the church.

George Edmund Street (1824–1881) was one of the greatest figures of 19th-century architecture. Born and educated in London, he was articled to the Winchester architect Owen Carter from 1841, then worked in George Gilbert Scott's office from 1844 before commencing practice in Wantage in 1848. Following growing success, he moved to London in 1856 and became a leader of the Gothic Revival. Much of his work, including St James's, is characterised by strong, muscular quality admired from the 1850s and early 1860s. He was an early pioneer of polychromy, though not used here. His most ambitious work is the Royal Courts of Justice in London, for which he gained the commission in 1868. He served as diocesan architect for Oxford, York, Winchester, and Ripon, and was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1874. Like his former master Scott, he is buried in Westminster Abbey.