Church Of St James

A parish church in Dursley with medieval origins dating to the mid-to-late 15th century. The most distinctive feature is its tower, built between 1707 and 1709 by the noted mason Thomas Sumsion of Colerne, replacing a medieval tower with spire that collapsed on 7 January 1698–9. The rebuilding costs were substantially funded by a grant from Queen Anne. The church underwent extensive restoration and alteration in 1867 by the architect Thomas Gordon Jackson, which accounts for much of its present appearance. The building is constructed in ashlar limestone and coursed tufa limestone rubble, with a clay plain tile roof.

The church comprises a nave with north and south aisles that incorporate chapels, a west tower, a south porch, and a chancel with south vestry and organ loft. The south aisle and porch are Perpendicular in style. The south porch is centrally positioned and features a crenellated parapet with floral panels, animal gargoyles, and crocket pinnacles at the corners. A low-pitched gable end contains three image niches with richly crocketed hoods above a moulded pointed archway fitted with 19th-century stud and plank gates. The sides of the porch have 2-light cinquefoil-headed casements serving an upper floor chamber. The porch interior is completely panelled with a lierne vault. The Tudor-arched south doorway has plank and batten doors, possibly 15th century. Single aisle windows with Perpendicular tracery stand either side of the porch, with diagonal offset buttresses to both porch and aisle. The south chapel has a lower pitched roof but similar crenellated parapet to its buttressed wall, which contains three earlier Perpendicular-traceried windows in tufa stone, one facing east. Elaborate finials crown the buttresses above striking animal gargoyles.

The north aisle was largely rebuilt in the 19th century while re-using existing fenestration in its buttressed wall. A blocked moulded pointed-arched doorway appears to be 14th century in date. Three windows display Perpendicular tracery, and to the left stands a late 14th-century window with reticulated tracery that has been reset from another location. An ogee-headed priest's doorway has a 19th-century door. The west end of the church shows gable ends of the aisles either side of the tower, each with a Perpendicular window; the north aisle end is rebuilt in bands of tufa and ashlar limestone.

The three-stage tower represents a notable example of how the medieval mason's tradition continued into the early 18th century under practitioners such as Sumsion. It features diagonal offset buttresses and bold continuous string courses. A pointed-arched west doorway and Perpendicular-traceried windows light the ringing chamber. The middle stage displays five-panel modelling with cinquefoil heads; a niche with crocket hood occupies the central panel on each face. A moulded image shelf with a bust below adorns the west face, while leaf-carved features with classical influence appear on the north and south faces. The date 1709 is carved on the underside of the west niche hood. Pairs of 2-light belfry openings on each face of the tower are set above a quatrefoil-pierced stone screen, with a blank panel beneath. The pierced crenellated parapet has openwork corner pinnacles based on those of Gloucester Cathedral.

The 19th-century chancel has a large east window with geometrical tracery and angle offset buttresses. Smaller geometrical-traceried windows light the north side, with a single window on the south; a gabled organ loft to the left has two geometrical-traceried windows. The interior is limewashed.

The 15th-century north arcade comprises five bays with octagonal columns, moulded capitals and bases, and simple chamfered-pointed arches. The west three bays of the south arcade similarly feature octagonal columns. The east two bays of the south arcade employ compound piers with more elaborate hollow-moulded arches and may be of earlier date. A simple pointed tower arch marks the line of the original nave roof before 19th-century rebuilding. The Perpendicular clerestorey is 19th century; the original nave roof has been raised and now has moulded brattished tie-beam trusses with carved spandrel filling. Similar roofs cover the aisles, though the south chapel retains an open wagon roof and displays a now headless stone effigy on its window sill. The north chapel contains triple sedilia with nodding crocket-enriched ogee hoods and an ogee-headed niche to the left.

The lofty High Victorian chancel has an arch with attached sandstone shafts, stiff leaf capitals, and a moulded arch with floral enrichment. Stone ribbing adorns the walls and a barrel vault above. Matching triple sedilia stand to the east of the organ loft, and a cinquefoil-headed aumbry is set in the north wall. Choir stalls, pews, and an octagonal timber pulpit are all 19th century. A 14th-century octagonal stone font with flower and shield panels to alternating faces stands on a shafted 19th-century base within a baptistery floor of 1920 by W.H.R. Blacking.

The church contains many fine 18th and 19th-century memorials. Two stand above the south doorway: the memorial to William Purnell, who died in 1743, has an open pediment on fluted pilasters with an armorial cartouche above the inscription panel. Adjacent is a tall Gothick tablet to Robert Bransby Cooper, died 1845, with buttressed sides and a crocketed ogee top. A memorial to John Phelps, died 1755, stands at the east end of the nave adjoining the chapel arch and features elaborate use of coloured stone with a panel flanked by scrolls and surmounted by a cartouche supported by curlicues. The north aisle wall bears a large memorial to Mary, wife of Edward Bloxsome, died 1840, which displays a sarcophagus in relief with a hooded mourner and broken pillar.

Stained glass of the late 19th and early 20th centuries includes the east window by Burlison and Grylls. Four windows in the north aisle and another in the chancel date to 1909 and are by Walter Tower, who signed his work with a black castle superimposed upon a sheaf of corn. Two windows in the south-west corner date to 1921 and are by Christopher Webb.

Very little remains of the 13th and 14th-century church, particularly following the extensive 19th-century rebuilding.