Description

SOUTH ELMHAM ST. JAMES CHURCH LANE
TM 38 SW

4/53 Church of St. James
1.9.53
- I

Parish church. C12, C13, C14 and C15. Nave, chancel, south porch, south aisle
and west tower. In knapped and rubble flint throughout, with traces of old
render; coursed rubble in the lower stages of the nave north wall; freestone
dressings. Slate roof to nave; lead to south aisle; old plaintiles with
fishscale bands to chancel. Wide stepped buttresses to the north and south
walls of the nave; diagonal buttress to the east end of the aisle. Norman
north doorway to the nave, its pointed arch reconstructed from 2 sections with
a double billet moulding; 3 traceried windows, one 3-light and 2 2-light in
Perpendicular style in the north wall. The chancel has a C13 lancet: window on
the north, 2, later lancets on the south, and a C19 3-light east window with
intersecting tracery. The porch exterior is largely C19; open timber roof
inside; to the east of the door, a flamboyant-headed niche with a projecting
bowl. South door with continuous moulding, and quarter-round mouldings to
the hood-mould. C13 south aisle: 2 Y-tracery windows and one Perpendicular, 2-
light, square-headed. Squat, unbuttressed west tower, its walls with some
black knapped flint, and a flat parapet with a frieze of trefoil stone panels
infilled with flint flushwork; a Y-tracery window to each face of the top
stage. The interior of the church is considerably Victorianised, with
benches, lectern, screen and chancel fittings mainly C19. The splay of a
Norman slit window in the north wall of the nave. Late C13 arcade in 4 bays
with octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches; the western bay is wider and
higher, with a stilted arch reminiscent of the church of All Saints, South
Elmham. Square C12 font of Purbeck marble with very worn shallow blank
arcading round the bowl, a large central shaft and 4 smaller corner. shafts on
a fluted base with a later base below that. Tall suspended C15 font cover.
Arms of George III above the tower arch. At the rear of the nave, a section
of C14 rood screen, the 5 lights, divided by shafts with moulded capitals and
bases, with cusped trefoil heads; boarded base. Square C17 pulpit with
applied panels, guilloche and other ornament. Part of rood stairs on the
south side of the chancel. Restored C13 angle piscina and remains of sedilia.
Verse inscription d.1601 to William Grudgefield in the sanctuary; 3 black
ledger slabs to members of the Green family, C17, in the nave. Fragments of
old glass in the heads of the nave windows. On the north wall of the nave, 2
figures, a man and a woman, taken from the C15 brass on the nave floor.

Listing NGR: TM3227281216

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17527385

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)