Church Of St James

Church of St James

This is a parish church at Jacobstow, with a nave and aisles dating from the 15th century, a porch and tower built in the late 15th or early 16th century, and a chancel that was rebuilt in 1886 by architect James P St Aubyn, when the nave roof was also replaced.

The tower and porch are constructed in granite ashlar, while the aisles are made of slatestone rubble with granite dressings. The chancel is built in slatestone rubble with some freestone, including freestone tracery and dressings. The roofs are of slate, with slate bargeboarding to the aisle gable ends. The building uses Hatherleigh stone.

The church comprises a nave and chancel, a Perpendicular west tower, a south porch, and four-bay aisles. The tower is a fine, unbuttressed, three-stage structure with a battlemented top. The plinth has bands of carving below a moulded string course: the west face displays three mouchettes within roundels, the north face has quatrefoils within squares, and the south face shows two mouchettes within squares. A moulded and painted arch under a square head forms the west entrance, with mouchettes carved in the spandrels and a hood mould. The first stage has a three-light granite Perpendicular window beneath a hood mould and a trefoil-headed niche with an engaged finial below. The belfry stage features paired granite trefoil-headed openings under a recessed blind quatrefoil. The tower is topped with battlemented crocketted pinnacles terminating in crosses. A slightly projecting stair turret with slit openings rises on the north side.

The south porch is battlemented and has a shallow-moulded outer door under a square head with floral motifs carved in the spandrels. Inside, the porch contains granite-topped benches and is roofed with a fine tunnel vault constructed from unjointed granite blocks running north-south. A shallow-moulded inner door lies below a trefoil-headed freestone image niche.

The aisle windows are three-light Perpendicular openings beneath hood moulds with small label stops, whilst the windows at the east end are four-light and similar in style. The 19th-century chancel has battered angle buttresses, a south door, and geometric tracery under moulded hoods with label stops. A five-sided rood loft stair turret rises on the north side, with a sharply pointed arch entrance featuring shallow mouldings serving as the north entrance.

The interior features identical granite arcades with monolithic piers of eight hollows and four shafts with moulded capitals, carrying moulded four-centred arches. The aisle roofs are ceiled waggon vaults with ribs and foliage bosses; the south aisle has been somewhat restored, whilst the north aisle retains vine carving on the wall-plate. The nave roof, dated 1886, has herringbone boards behind arched braces and a collar with a moulded longitudinal rib, with the chancel arch marked by angel corbels. Bosses and dentil wall-plate carving ornament the chancel. A five-light east window with a moulded inner arch carried on engaged shafts with bell capitals lights the chancel. The chancel floor level was probably raised in 1886, and features good 19th-century tiling on the altar step.

A moulded granite tower arch on moulded capitals with truncated shafts below provides the entrance to the nave. The 12th-century font has faces at the corners and flowers in roundels on the sides. A good circa 15th-century inner north door with vertical and horizontal battens survives. The pulpit comprises circa 16th-century bench ends. An Elizabethan communion table with bulbous legs is present, along with aumbries in the north and south aisles, holy water stoups by the north and south doors, and a piscina in the chancel. Late 19th and early 20th-century paintings of angels adorn either side of the east window. A good slate memorial to Susannah and Mary Clerk, who died in 1745 and 1748 respectively, is attached to the exterior east chancel wall. The bell chamber was not inspected.