Parish Church of St James

Parish Church of St James

A small rectangular parish church of single-cell type, constructed in rubble with 19th-century tooled limestone dressings and slate-hung south and west faces. The slate roof features a decorative tiled ridge, deep verges and plain bargeboards, with an iron gable cross at the east end. A two-stage west bellcote with slab-coped gable and buttressed sides contains a double inner arch and a 4-centred bell opening surmounted by a gable cross.

The south entrance is marked by a gabled porch with plain buttresses to its sides and a pointed arched doorway that is chamfered and broach-stopped, with a roll-moulded label terminating in carved head stops. The porch is fitted with modern wire bird doors and a boarded inner door with decorative ironwork, and has a counter-changed porch floor in red and black tiles. The return walls of the porch each contain a cusped trefoil window.

The church is lit by simple cusped lancet windows with leaded glazing: four on the south side (three to the right of the porch, one to the left), similar windows to the north side, and at the east end a triple lancet group with the central window set higher. The west end displays a large rose window containing four small cusped oculi. A lean-to vestry adjoins flush with the west gable on the north side, featuring a catslide roof and a 2-light plain chamfered mullioned window to its east side. A boiler-house lean-to with boarded door facing east adjoins to the north.

The interior comprises a single-cell plan with continuous nave and chancel. The roof consists of six bays of arched-braced collar trusses of thin scantling with bolted braces; these trusses appear originally to have been of tie-beam and raking strut type, probably relating to the 1777 restoration, with the arched braces appearing to be 1860s additions. Plain pine pews rest on raised wooden plinths, and a central counter-changed red and black tiled pavement runs through the church. Towards the west end stands an octagonal limestone font in Perpendicular style, with an octagonal plinth and base and wooden font cover with decorative ironwork.

A semi-octagonal pine pulpit with simple open tracery panels to the front is positioned on a chamfered, tooled limestone plinth with three wooden steps ascending from the south. The chancel, contained within the eastern-most bay, has a stepped-up pavement and is furnished with pine altar rails with scrolled ironwork supports.

The focal point of the chancel is a carved oak reredos in early Decorated style, featuring crenellated brattishing with both zoomorphic and foliated brackets. Crocketted and gabled panels flank the east window group, which displays blind Y-tracery with rosettes, carved geometric decoration and blind quatrefoils below. On the jambs flanking the central east window are placed carved female saint sculptures on column bases with small canopy niches. A polychromed tiled dado in octagonal framed arrangements is set on either side of the central altar, bearing the Alpha and Omega symbols together with Christ's monograms. The reredos is inscribed on the dado rail with a dedication to "Katherine Rawlinson, wife of Meilir Owen, Tan-y-Gwrt" and is dated 1870.

The stained glass includes a triple lancet east window group with figurative glass in Decorated style showing scenes from Christ's Passion, signed and dated 1861 by O'Connor. Three south windows are in memory of Katherine Rawlinson and were installed in 1872, depicting figurative scenes of charitable acts. The western-most south window is dedicated to Ellen Owen (1895) and is signed "Alexander Gibbs and Co., Bloomsbury St., London". The west rose window depicts SS Peter, Paul, John and James each within his own quatrefoil panel, in memory of Jane, wife of Aneurin Owen (1877).

Monuments on the north wall include a simple classical limestone funerary tablet on a black-coloured base commemorating Frances Roberts of Mysevin (died 1831), Mary (died 1835), Mary (died 1835) and Joseph (died 1835). Also on the north wall is a simple white marble tablet on a black-coloured limestone base to Margaret Edwards of Plas Nantglyn (died 1835).

The vestry adjoining the north side at the west end, accessed from the church via a plain boarded door, contains an 18th-century incised slate benefactors' board and an early inscribed stone.