Church Of St James The Greater

CHURCH OF ST JAMES THE GREATER

A town church built in 1752-53 in the classical style, designed by Carlisle Spedding, a mining engineer working as agent for James Lowther, owner of Whitehaven Colliery, who donated the land. The construction cost 3,400 pounds. The building has undergone various alterations: the apse was restored in 1871, a reordering took place in 1886, a war memorial chapel was added in 1921, and a baptistery in 1922. The church is sited in an elevated position.

The exterior displays the centre bay of the west end in ashlar masonry, with the remainder in roughcast with rusticated quoins and a slate roof. A galleried nave with a west end tower and porch contains a stair hall providing access to the galleries, and the church terminates with an apsidal east end. The three-stage west tower is slightly broken forward with a plain parapet above a corbelled cornice and obelisk pinnacles. The bottom stage's west face is treated as a pediment. A tall classical round-headed doorway with a keyblock is flanked by reeded pilasters supporting a triglyph frieze below a pediment, with large two-leaf fielded panelled doors. The doorway is flanked by two tiers of rectangular windows. The west end of the nave has a plain parapet above a moulded cornice. The north and south sides of the nave have rectangular windows glazed with margin panes: nine gallery windows and seven ground floor windows with plain doors to the west. The east end features blocked Diocletian windows to the apse.

The interior contains inner west doors dating from around 1995 engraved with the national symbols of Sri Lanka. A segmental-headed sanctuary arch with a triple keyblock and panelled soffit opens into the main space. Three-sided galleries on the north and south sides extend for six bays on Tuscan columns with a triglyph frieze with guttae. The gallery fronts have fielded panels and ramps up at the centre of the west end. The upper tier of columns to the ceiling cornice is Ionic. The nave ceiling is flat plaster, decorated with large roundels of fine decorative plasterwork depicting the Annunciation and the Ascension, reputed to have been executed by Italian craftsmen. The apse features a top-lit dome and is panelled with Ionic pilasters and a pedimented Ionic frame surrounding a central painting of the Transfiguration by Giulio Cesare Procaccini (1548-1626), presented to the church in 1869. The two eastern bays on the south side are screened as a 1921 memorial chapel, while one bay of the north side functions as the 1922 baptistery, both with arcading on paired Ionic columns.

A handsome polygonal timber pulpit from the 1750s displays fielded panels on a later stem, with each face divided by Ionic pilasters. Originally positioned at the east end, it was elevated on a tall column with a tall flight of steps with turned balusters and a ramped, wreathed handrail; the steps and column are now stored in the gallery and represent a rare survival. An elegant font of Florentine marble, dated to the mid-17th century, features a shallow marble bowl on a baluster and was presented to the church in 1876. Nave benches, probably from the 18th century, have ends with fielded panels. A fine 1750s imperial staircase to the galleries incorporates turned balusters, a ramped handrail, and a fielded panelled dado. Eighteenth-century joinery includes fielded panelled doors to the galleries with pedimented overdoors. The gallery retains early seating on the north and south sides and tiered seating in the west gallery, including one flap-up seat with butterfly hinges and seats with curved backs. Gallery windows have borders of red glass containing texts. Large painted figures of Moses and Aaron, rescued from the Church of St Nicholas, are displayed in the gallery.

The building represents an outstanding example of a 1752-3 church with exceptional Georgian interior decoration and fittings.