Church of St James

Church of St James

An Anglican parish church of limestone and flint with tiled or leaded roof, located on the east side of High Street in Berwick St James. The building dates principally from the 12th to 17th centuries, with restoration work carried out in 1871.

The church follows a traditional plan with a west tower, nave with side chapels, chancel with lean-to vestry, and north porch. The gabled north porch, formerly two-storeys high, features a double hollow-chamfered pointed doorway probably dating to the 16th century, a diagonal buttress to the west side, and a four-light 16th-century cusped mullioned window to the east wall. The gable has a coped verge and an 1871 datestone.

The north chapel to the left of the porch has a single-light cusped 16th-century window and a three-light 16th-century window to the east, with a lead roof. The nave clerestory is characterised by a moulded string course and two-light and three-light 16th-century cusped windows flanking the porch, with string course to the parapet featuring saddleback coping. An ashlar stack to the left bears a sanctus cross.

The north side of the chancel displays a pair of chamfered lancets and a single lancet to the left of the 19th-century lean-to vestry, which has a chamfered doorway and square window. The east end has a pilaster and angle buttresses with stepped triple lancets. The south side of the chancel shows a central pair of lancets flanked by single lancets, a 14th-century cusped lancet to the left, and buttresses with offsets.

The south chapel contains a two-light 16th-century cusped window and a pair of cusped ogee lancets. The south side of the nave features a blocked shouldered doorway, a 14th-century two-light cusped ogee window to the left, an offset string course to the clerestory, two two-light and one single-light 16th-century cusped windows, and a parapet matching the north side.

The two-stage tower has angle buttresses and chamfered round-headed windows, with an offset bellstage containing paired round-headed louvred windows. A string course leads to a battlemented parapet. The north side of the tower bears a datestone reading: WIL.SNOW/THO. GILBERT/CHURCH/WARDENS/1670.

Interior

The porch retains three stone corbels for a removed upper floor and a stone bench. It preserves a fine 12th-century round-headed doorway with zig-zag ornament, a plain tympanum with some incised lozenge decoration to the square-headed door lintel, attached shafts with scalloped capitals, and a good ribbed door.

The nave has a carefully restored three-bay roof of shallow-pitched king-post trusses with moulded timbers and curved bracing to carved head corbels, probably dating to the 16th century. A continuously chamfered pointed tower arch with broach stops opens into the space. A blocked moulded elliptically-arched doorway with broken crockets on the north wall formerly led to the pulpit.

The north chapel is defined by a Transitional pointed arch with nailhead ornament, chamfered responds with moulded capitals, and a similarly moulded doorway to the right. It retains a lean-to roof with chamfered timbers.

The south chapel has a chamfered round arch with similar responds, broach stops, and a cusped ogee piscina on the south wall.

A continuously chamfered chancel arch with broach stops separates the nave from the chancel. The chancel features a 19th-century scissor-rafter roof, an ogee cusped lancet and 13th-century lancet on the north wall with their corresponding openings to the south now within the vestry. Continuous roll-moulded sills are cut by 14th-century lancets, each with small cusped recesses and chamfered rere-arches to the 13th-century lancets.

Fittings include a good late 17th-century communion rail with turned balusters and vase finials, a late Medieval carved stone pulpit with arched panels on moulded corbelling (moved from the north wall in the 19th century), a 12th-century stone cylindrical font on a pedestal with moulded plinth and wooden cover with finial, and good 19th-century oak pews. Two classical marble tablets in the chancel commemorate the Pinckney family: one to Robert by Osmond of Sarum, died 1823, features an urn and drapery; the other is to another Robert, died 1836.