Church Of St James

Church of St James

This church dates from the 12th and 13th centuries and was restored in 1870-72. It is constructed of sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings and has plain tile roofs.

The building consists of a west tower, a nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, a chancel, and a north vestry.

The tower is in three stages. It has a moulded plinth and offsets, with ashler pilaster buttresses at the left corner and in the centre on the lower two stages. The lowest stage of the left buttress has a chamfered light vent, and the second stage has a lancet window. The belfry openings are set within shafted, pointed-arched surrounds, and the tower is topped by a 19th-century corbelled battlemented parapet. The west side features moulded plinths and offsets with corner and central buttresses, including lancet windows on the lowest and second stages of the central buttress. Above the second stage is a lozenge-shaped clock. The north side is similar but has a lancet window only on the second stage and no clock. The east side has the belfry opening with a chamfered hoodmould.

The nave has four bays. The south porch, added in the 19th century, is gabled with clasping buttresses and features a pointed-arched opening of two moulded and shafted orders. On each side are two lancet windows, and within is the original 12th-century doorway of two moulded, pointed-arched orders with shafted capitals bearing worn volutes.

The south aisle contains lancet and paired lancet windows, all with hoodmoulds. At the west and east ends are single lancet windows with hoodmoulds. The south clerestory has four chamfered round-arched windows with hoodmoulds. Cast-iron rainwater heads dated 1871 are visible, and 13th-century mask corbels support the parapet. Ashlar coping with a gable cross tops the south wall.

The north aisle has three paired lancet windows with hoodmoulds and a sill band, a parapet, and a lancet window at the west end. The north clerestory contains four chamfered lancet windows with hoodmoulds and a corbelled parapet.

The chancel has three bays with a plinth and offsets at sill level. Pilaster buttresses are positioned in the centre and at the right end. The south wall contains, from left to right: a pointed-arched window, a chamfered pointed-arched priests' door, three chamfered lancets with hoodmoulds, and three Early English-style image niches. The wall is finished with ashlar coping and a gable cross to the right. The east end has a moulded plinth, a central pilaster buttress below a window, an added diagonal buttress to the right, chamfered offsets, and triple lancet windows with stepped hoodmoulds. The north side of the chancel contains three chamfered lancet windows with hoodmoulds and a stepped buttress between the second and third windows. Above the vestry roof is a chamfered window.

The vestry probably dates from 1811. It features a pointed-arched east window with hoodmould and clasping buttresses on the north side, a chamfered doorway to a heating chamber, and paired lancet windows.

The interior of the church reveals extensive medieval detail. The four-bay north arcade has a circular pier at the westernmost position and octagonal piers elsewhere, all with torus-moulded bases and undercut capitals. The arches are double-chamfered with hoodmoulds and keeled responds. Above each arch is a pointed clerestory window with trefoil inner arches and irregularly splayed reveals.

The four-bay south arcade has a central octagonal pier matching those in the north arcade, whilst the outer two are circular. The capitals vary in design, including stiff-leaf and small volutes. The double-chamfered pointed arches have hoodmoulds, but the responds are not keeled. The south clerestory windows are 19th-century copies of those in the north.

The tower arch is wide and low with a triple-chamfered hoodmould. In its angles are heads with arcades, and above it is a chamfered pointed doorway. On the four inner sides of the tower are arches in the walls, perhaps indicating a former vault. A stair turret with a low chamfered doorway occupies the south-west corner.

The chancel arch is double-chamfered and pointed with a hoodmould and keeled responds with water-holding capitals.

Within the chancel are a double aumbry on the north side, an aumbry on the south, and a broken piscina with chamfered reveal and rounded trefoiled niche. An image corbel is on the south side, and a sill-level string runs along the wall. In the south aisle is a mid-14th-century recess with a steep crocketed canopy topped with a large apex finial and smaller side pinnacles. The tracery is cinquefoiled with secondary trefoiled cusping and may be an Easter Sepulchre, possibly reset. The 19th-century roofs feature king posts in the nave and semicircular ribs in the chancel.

The tower contains a deeply splayed west window, and the sill reuses medieval tombstones bearing swords. Several carved stones and monuments are preserved: on the floor is a 13th-century recumbent effigy of a knight in chain mail coif with sword and shield, a grave cover with a foliated cross from which emerges a man's head and praying hands, and pieces of two cross shafts dating from around 800, one decorated with beasts and the other with interlace motifs.

Wall monuments commemorate the building of the vestry in 1811 by Reverend Samuel Swire, Doctor of Divinity, Rector, to a design by Reverend James Griffith, Doctor of Divinity and Master of University College, Oxford, and his death in 1816. Additional monuments commemorate Mary Swire, daughter of John Swire (died 1816), Margaret Cockin (died 1777) with a lengthy inscription, Roger Swire and family (died 1792), and Jane Higginson (died 1802), represented by an oval plaque.