Church Of St James

The Church of St James is a parish church with origins dating back to the 12th and 13th centuries, though most of the structure is from the 15th century. The north aisle was added around 1546 and restored in 1900. It is built of red sandstone random rubble with Ham stone dressings and features a moulded plinth and 19th-century tiled roofs. The church has a four-bay nave, a three-bay north aisle, a south porch, and a west tower. The two-stage tower has a crenellated parapet and diagonal buttresses, with damage noted on the southwest corner. It includes a three-light window at the west end and two-light Decorated bell-openings. The chancel features a four-light Perpendicular window, and the east and west ends of the north aisle also have four-light windows. The north front displays three three-light mullioned windows with Tudor heads under hood moulds, along with two-light cinquefoil mullions flanking the south porch. A gabled tiled roof porch from the late 15th century has three-light Perpendicular windows that may have been reused.

Inside, the church is rendered with an arcade of Perpendicular piers set on roughly hewn plinths, featuring primitive Decorated capitals. The south door has a Norman arch, while the chancel arch is from the 13th century and the tower arch is single chamfered. The wagon roofs are plastered, except in the nave. The east window contains mid-16th-century painted Flemish glass that was incorporated in the late 19th century. The chancel has painted decoration from 1900, which is partly obscured. A fine wooden screen from around 1500 was restored in 1900 by Harry Hems of Exeter. The church also has a Norman font and pews carved by local villagers in 1900. Two rondels are set in the spandrels of the north aisle nave wall, with the right-hand one depicting a face with foliage thought to date from around 1300. On the west wall, there is a pair of late 16th-century Italian oil paintings that have been cut from a larger work, with the artist remaining unknown. Until 1867 or later, the exterior of the church was plastered and whitewashed.