Church of St James the Less

Church of St James the Less

This church on Pangbourne Hill comprises a west tower dated 1718 and a substantially rebuilt structure of 1866 designed by J. Woodman in Decorated Gothic style. The tower is constructed of red brick with grey diaper work and Bath stone dressings, while the remainder is built in flint with Bath stone dressings and tiled roofs pitched separately over the nave and aisle.

The west tower is of two stages. It features a plinth, string courses, rusticated quoins and a coped battlemented parapet with corner obelisks and weathervanes. The bellstage has round arched louvred openings on each face, with a clock above to the east and a stone plaque beneath to the south. The second stage has circular openings to the north, south and west, again with a clock above and stone plaque below to the south, and a stone plaque to the west. The first stage contains a six-light mullioned and transomed window to the west and a round boarded door to the south.

The nave is of four bays with a plinth, cill string and parapeted gable ends. Windows are two-light with cusped Y-tracery and hoodmoulds with carved stops. A shafted south doorway in the second bay from the left features a hoodmould with carved stops and two boarded doors. The gabled south porch has angle buttresses, a moulded archway with cusping, a hoodmould with carved stops and two boarded doors, together with two-light windows in its east and west faces.

The chancel is of two bays with a plinth, cill string, angle buttresses and parapeted gable end. It contains two-light cusped windows with hoodmoulds and carved stops, and a large four-light east window with hoodmould and carved stops.

The vestry has a two-light square-headed east window and a three-light window with hoodmould and carved stops in a set-back gable end above. Two two-light segmental-headed windows face north. A twentieth-century addition to the north has a boarded door to the west.

The north aisle is of four bays with a plinth, cill string and angle buttresses. It contains two-light cusped windows with returned hoodmoulds and a five-light west window.

The interior is very rich with much carving and moulding. The nave has a four-bay north aisle arcade with round piers, moulded capitals and bases, and a hoodmould. The roof is of eight bays with cusped arch bracing, double purlins and windbraces. A two-light arched opening stands at the east end of the north aisle. The chancel arch is moulded with carved capitals. The chancel has a two-bay arcade to the north with a central granite pier, moulded arches and foliated capitals; the windows feature nook shafts and hoodmoulds. An ogee aumbry is positioned to the north and a piscina to the south-east. The roof is of three bays with arch-braced collars and windbraces.

Fittings include a seventeenth-century octagonal wooden pulpit with blank arches and a nineteenth-century stone base, and a nineteenth-century octagonal stone font.

Monuments include a large chest tomb to Sir John Davis of 1625 with three recumbent effigies and coupled Tuscan columns supporting a triangular pediment; a tablet to Martha, Anne and Mary Sucklinge of 1658–61 with a broken segmental pediment (their brother, the poet Sir John Suckling, is reputed to have invented cribbage); a tablet to the engineer Sir Benjamin Baker of 1907 with a relief of the Forth Bridge; other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century monuments; and two hatchments.