Parish Church of St James

A parish church, possibly incorporating part of a C12 core, rebuilt in the C16 and altered in the C18.

MATERIALS: the building is constructed of rubble-stone walls with ashlar dressings. The roof, which is covered in slate, has raised gable ends.

PLAN: the simple rectangular plan, orientated east-west, is a single undivided space, with no distinction between nave and chancel.

EXTERIOR: the building is a single storey high. In the north wall are two late-C16 windows, each of three, four-centred lights in a square head. The south wall has two similar windows, the eastern of two, and the western of three lights. Between them is the west jamb of a destroyed doorway, probably dating from the C16. The west wall has a square-headed C18 doorway with architrave and cornice, and a round window of the C18 above it. The large, circular east window dates from the C18, with cusped tracery forming a six-pointed star pattern, with daggers and trefoils, possibly added in the C19, though perhaps as early as the early C18.

INTERIOR: the interior is a single space, consisting of nave and chancel. The roof is a continuous, plastered segmental wagon roof with a wooden soffit rising from pilasters, to distinguish the nave from the chancel. The north, south and west windows all have deeply splayed openings. The east end houses the very large, circular east window; the wall has small-square panelling of the C18, built to respect the window opening, with moulded edges to the fields and a carved cornice with foliage and the heads of putti.

PRINCIPAL FITTINGS: the furnishings date from the C18. The FONT is stone, with a bulbous octagonal stem and bowl. The COMMUNION RAILS are wood with moulded balusters and rail. The building retains a full set of PEWS, of oak with plain ends with chamfered edges. The combined PULPIT and READING DESK are in one unit, and date from the C19. Stained GLASS in the west window commemorates Ann Bunch, who died in 1890. The stained GLASS in the east window, in memory of Charles Crew who died at sea in 1893, depicts angels in various attitudes, one figure in each of the small fields created by the complex cusped tracery, with brightly-coloured margins.