Church of St James

Church of St James

This church at Eastbury was built between 1851 and 1853 to the design of George Edmund Street, one of the leading Victorian architects of the period. It was commissioned by Robert Milman, who was Vicar of Lambourn at the time.

The building is constructed of knapped flint with Bath stone dressings, including string courses, quoins and jambs. The roof is a large catslide design with sweeping eaves, covered in tile. A small extension at the west end is of brick.

The plan is straightforward: a three-bay nave with a north aisle, an east end chancel and a small vestry. The exterior displays a vernacular style with the characteristic catslide roof and sweeping eaves. Large, stepped stone buttresses appear on the north, south, east and west elevations. Entry is through a single arched doorway with dressed stone jambs at the north-west end. A stone double-gabled bellcote rises above the junction of the nave and chancel, and a stone cross adorns the gable head at the east end.

The fenestration varies in size and style across all elevations, featuring simplified tracery, arches and multiple foils. The tracery design is thought to reflect Street's architectural tours of France and Germany. The church contains nine windows in total. The most impressive is the large east window, formed of five lights with three sexfoils in circles at the head, containing stained glass designed by Ward and Hughes in 1884. The south elevation includes a mid-19th-century cusped Y-traceried window in the chancel with stained glass by Ward and Hughes from 1883; a mid-19th-century four-light window with tracery between trefoils at the head in the form of a cross, with stained glass by Lavers, Barraud and Westlake from 1889; and a commemorative 20th-century engraved window in the nave. A tall lancet window with trefoil and stained glass designed by Ward and Hughes in 1881 as a memorial to Robert Milman is set into the western wall of the nave. The north aisle contains a circular quatrefoil stained glass window to the west in the style of Lavers, Barraud and Westlake, and two narrow lancets.

Interior

The interior is well-preserved. The central nave features an arched braced timber-boarded roof and intact original elm pews with carved elbow-profile bench-ends and open backs. There are three rows of approximately ten pews, with some reorganisation and removal of pews to the south-west of the nave. The floor comprises plain red square quarry tiles beneath the pews with a blue carpet in the central walkway. An octagonal stone font by Street stands towards the north-west of the nave upon a four-columned base with keeled moulding.

The chancel to the east is accessed through a broad, plainly moulded arch with no capitals. Intact original low stone cancelli screens by Street on either side of the central aisle feature quatrefoil decoration. A mid-19th-century carved wooden lectern with wedge shape and quatrefoil decoration on a carved stem stands in front of the southern screen, facing the nave. A timber-panelled raised pulpit on a circular stone base with stepped access stands in front of the northern screen, between the junction of the nave and north aisle.

The chancel floor is decorated in black, buff and red tiles in a diamond lattice pattern, with further elaborative encaustic tiles in the sanctuary. The chancel roof is arched, constructed with pairs of rafters. Choir stalls, probably of pine with carved detailing and wooden reading desks, form two single rows. A small vestry is accessible to the north of the chancel through a narrow arched doorway.

The sanctuary is stepped with a single intact timber altar rail with straight brace posts. Two wooden original candle-holders, probably of mid-19th-century date, stand at either side of the intact high altar, each with a circular holder and leaf-shaped decoration. Behind the altar is a 20th-century reredos of diagonal timber boarding with a triangular centrepiece and inset crucifix. Set into the south wall adjacent to the altar is a piscina and sedilia of unusually two seats rather than three. The broad-arched late-19th-century stained glass east window with geometrical tracery of five lights and three sexfoiled circles provides the majority of light to the interior and remains intact.

A large engraved glass window of 1971 by Sir Alan Charles Laurence Whistler (1912–2000) occupies the south aisle opposite the church entrance. It was commissioned by Myfanwy Thomas (1910–2005), daughter of the First World War poet Edward Thomas (1878–1917), "in celebration of the lives of Edward Thomas poet and Helen his wife". Edward Thomas's widow lived in the village of Eastbury at Bridge Cottage from 1954 until her death in 1967. The clear-glass arched window has a quatrefoil design of three full-lights and two half-lights in the head, engraved with a symbolic landscape scene adorned with verses from Thomas's poems.

The north aisle comprises a low-arched arcade on plain octagonal moulded piers with square bases and moulded detailing on each quadrant, similar to the elbowed profile design of the pew bench-ends. A lean-to roof with open rafters rises above the aisle. The floor is decorated with the same plain red square quarry tiles as the nave, covered with blue carpet in the walkway. The plain painted walls carry stone plaques. A large wooden church organ is set into the fabric to the east in front of the vestry. An intact timber alms box stands on an octagonal timber and stone pillar base to the east of the arched doorway entrance.