Church Of St James

The Church of St James is a Church of England building constructed between 1865 and 1867 by architects Anderson & Pepper from Bradford. It is made of quarry-faced red sandstone from Cove Quarry, set on a chamfered plinth, with flush yellow sandstone ashlar quoins and dressings, along with chamfer and bands of calciferous sandstone. The church features stepped buttresses and an eaves cornice, topped with graduated slate roofs that have coped gables and cross finials.

The structure consists of a five-bay nave, a three-storey southwest tower, a northwest porch, aisles, and transepts, along with a single-bay chancel that has an apsidal end. The tower is notable for its double west doors, which are adorned with scrolled wrought-iron hinge brackets and sit under a moulded pointed arch with shafts. It has clasping buttresses and lancet windows on three levels, with paired louvred windows in the belfry. The tower is capped with a broach spire that includes lucarnes.

The gabled porch features double doors set in a dog-tooth surround, topped by a quatrefoil. The west window has geometric tracery with five lights and a quatrefoil above. The aisles contain two-light windows with trefoil heads and quatrefoils, while the clerestory has paired trefoil-headed lancets. The north transept, which includes a vestry, has a pointed doorway accessed by steps, and the south transept features a similar trefoil-headed lancet and quatrefoil window above.

Inside, the church boasts richly labelled arches that terminate in carved foliage bosses, supported by red circular columns with carved and moulded caps. The open timber roof features principals that spring from ornamental columns with carved caps and bosses. The floor is laid with black and red Staffordshire tiles, and there are late 19th-century open timber benches. The chancel arch springs from two columns on moulded brackets and caps, while the chancel itself has a rib-vaulted ceiling that rises from small caps and bosses. The apse windows, given by Thomas Nelson, were crafted by John Scott & Son of Carlisle, as noted in the Carlisle Journal in 1867 and 1868. For more details, refer to the centenary pamphlet for St James' Church published in 1967.