Church Of St James

Church of St James

A chapel on the Black Hall estate, built in 1878 by architect R Medley Fulford for Frederick James Cornish-Bowden of Black Hall in memory of his father, James Cornish. The church commemorates James Cornish, who died as a result of falling from his horse nearby.

The building is constructed from dressed snecked shale with bands of pink ashlar, featuring some slate hanging. The windows are timber and ironstone, with a slate roof decorated with crested ridge tiles. The church is oriented on a north-east to south-west axis with the liturgical east at the north-east end.

The plan comprises a nave and chancel in one, with a vestry on the south side of the nave that incorporates a porch to the south doorway. On the north side of the chancel projects an organ chamber. All elements date from the original 1878 build.

Exterior

The steeply pitched roof runs across the entire church with exposed rafter ends under the eaves and exposed purlin ends on brackets at the west gable end. At the east end, the gable has a coped parapet with an Iona cross at the apex. The roof is carried down over the organ chamber on the north side of the chancel and swept down over the vestry on the south side of the nave. The vestry incorporates an open timber porch in its west angle to the south doorway, with a small gable over the entrance on its west side.

The base of all walls, including the porch, is slightly battered. The west end of the south wall of the nave, to the left of the porch, has shallow buttresses with slate weathered set-offs. Between the buttresses the walls display fishscale-patterned slate hanging, with slate-weathered cills to the one and two-light timber windows. These windows have straight heads and cusped lights with leaded panes. The north windows are similar, also set in slate hanging with deep slate-weathered cills between shallow buttresses. The four-light west window is also timber but features a depressed two-centred arch with cusped lights. The vestry windows are similarly timber with cusped lights.

The chancel has stone window frames and a moulded string course that continues around the weathered diagonal corner buttresses. The string course rises to the cill of the three cusped lancet lights of the east window, which are contained within a hoodmould. Above the east window is a small cusped lancet ventilation slit with a transom. Below the east window, the string course rises over three crosses depicted in pink stone. The string course on the south side of the chancel rises to the higher cill level of the two cusped lancets to the east, whilst the two lights of the chancel's south window to the west are uncusped.

Over the roof between the nave and chancel stands a bell turret with slated louvres below the open timber bell stage and a slated spire with sprocketted eaves. The lead flashing at the top of the spire is bent over into scrolls, and an iron Jerusalem cross tops the apex.

Interior

The nave and chancel form one space except where the roof trusses over the screen are coupled to form a ceilure. The roof trusses are arch-braced with hammerbeams on stone corbels. The spandrels of the arch braces over the chancel are pierced, and the coupled trusses over the screen have a frame above the collar which supports the belfry on the roof.

The timber screen was designed by H Hems and features cusped arches and a brattiched top rail with a cross at the centre. Its wainscot is pierced and incorporates a pulpit on the north side with pierced sides, a brattished top rail, and a tiled base. The wall plates in the nave are carried over the window recesses on timber braces supported on corbels. The nave walls are plastered with a vertical boarded dado, whilst the chancel walls are whitewashed brick.

The crenellated timber reredos features a canopied niche, and the altar table is original. The low sill of the south window of the chancel forms a sedilia. On the north wall, the cusped ambry has a shelf supported on a bracket. The moulded wooden altar rail has turned posts and pierced spandrels. The organ, set in an organ chamber on the north side of the chancel, has a fretwork frieze. The choir stalls are original and well designed.

The chancel floor has patterned quarry tiles and is at a higher level than the nave, with a further step up to the altar. An ornate wrought iron brass lectern stands in the chancel. The nave contains simple but well-designed benches with curved inverted Y-shaped ends. A small octagonal font has a marble stem and moulded base. The original south door and vestry door are in gothic style with panelled design.

The east window contains stained glass. The other windows feature only stained glass margin panes, whilst the chancel south windows have flowers in the window heads.

A brass plaque on the south wall of the chancel commemorates the building's dedication to James Cornish of Black Hall.