Church of St James and southern boundary wall

Church of St James and Southern Boundary Wall

Church. Built 1872-1873 by Charles Nightingale Beazley. Vestry and choir room added in 1907 by Beazley and Burrows. The attached church hall and link range, added in 1971 and extended in 1995, are not included in the listing.

The church is constructed of coursed squared Kentish ragstone with Bath stone dressings. The roof is clay tile with overhanging eaves to the nave and aisles. The spire is clad with wooden shingles.

The plan comprises a gabled four-bay clerestoried nave with lean-to aisles, a lower chancel, and a short south transept containing a chapel. The north side is balanced by the 1907 vestry and choir room, divided from each other by a panelled timber screen. A south-west tower forms the porch.

The church is designed in the Gothic Revival style, following an austere later Early English manner with trefoil-headed lancets and plate tracery on the larger pointed-arched windows. The south-west tower consists of three stages separated by string courses, with the ground floor acting as a porch. It features angle buttresses, a stair turret with lancets on the west side, and a splay-footed spire. The four arched windows in the top stage have plate tracery with timber louvers, and on the south side of the middle stage is a round window with cinquefoil tracery. The double-height porch in the tower base has a tall pointed-arched south entrance with drip moulding and half-height cast iron gates.

The west elevation contains a west window with plate tracery featuring three grouped lancets and a rose window in the spandrel. The aisles have paired lancets and are divided from the nave by buttresses with sloped capping.

The north elevation of the nave has triple lancet clerestory windows to each bay (though internally all clerestory windows have sexfoil tracery). The aisle bays are divided by buttresses with pairs of lancets in each bay. The gable of the shallow original north transept has a round window with cinquefoil tracery and stone corbels to the eaves. The gable end of the 1907 vestry has an arched window with triple lancets and a round window with trefoil tracery. The returns have paired rectangular windows and the west elevation has a projecting stone chimney.

The east elevation has angled buttresses with trefoil decoration to the pitched caps. The east window features plate tracery with five lancets and three round windows with multifoil tracery.

The south elevation has four bays of triple lancet clerestory windows to the nave (the westernmost hidden behind the tower) but only three bays to the aisle due to the tower. The two eastern aisle bays have paired lancets but the western bay has only one. The south transept has angled buttresses and an arched window in the gable end with plate tracery featuring paired lancets and a quatrefoil. The western return has an arched doorway.

Interior

The interior is of Bath stone ashlar. The nave and chapel have timber-framed roofs with closely spaced shallow trusses resting on a wall plate, while the chancel has a boarded and panelled barrel roof. All arches are pointed; those to the aisles rest on asymmetrically arranged alternating round and octagonal columns with simple moulded capitals and cushion bases. The floors contain panels of polychromatic tiles with geometric patterns, more elaborate in the chancel. The nave has plain bench pews. The main church door and the door to the choir room have ornate decorative ironwork strap hinges. Access to the tower is via an arched doorway in the west side of the porch.

The chancel has a south arch to the chapel with a glazed timber screen, and a north arch containing the organ (renovated in 2002). A trefoil-arched piscina and pointed-arched sedilia are all linked by a continuous hood moulding that also frames the reredos. Over the sedilia the moulding is topped by fantail decoration. The arch between the south aisle and the chapel has a modern glazed screen and doors.

Principal Fixtures

The ornate Gothic pulpit on the north side of the chancel arch probably dates from 1875, when it was commissioned following the restoration of St John the Baptist, Margate, by Ewan Christian. It was donated to St James' in 1937 to replace the original pulpit which stood on the south side of the arch. The pulpit is of painted white marble with unpainted marble statues of St Peter, St Paul and St John the Baptist. These occupy canopied niches supported by angelic busts and divided by paired trefoil arches with green marble colonettes. The plain stone font has a rounded cup with scalloped metal edging set on an octagonal shaft and base.

Victorian stained glass survives in some windows of the south aisle, including 'St James', probably by Alexander Gibbs (circa 1873) and 'Christ as Sower' by Clayton & Bell (1886). Much other glass was replaced after damage during the Second World War and is generally plain, apart from the east window of 1960 by Francis Spear depicting 'The Spread of the Spirit', which shows the spread of Christianity.

Southern Boundary Wall

The southern boundary wall to Canterbury Road is of coursed ragstone with canted stone capping and pyramidal caps to the taller piers. Towards the western end the wall curves inwards to enclose the separately listed Grade II Westgate and Garlinge war memorial.