Description

ILFRACOMBE

SS5247 ST JAMES' PLACE
853-1/7/125 Parish Church of SS Philip and James
16/03/92

II*

Anglican church. 1856 by John Hayward. Geometrical Decorated
style.
MATERIALS: snecked rubble with ashlar dressings; Welsh slate
roof with fishscale banding to spire.
PLAN: Nave of 5 bays (with narthex), aisles, N porch, N
transeptal steeple and S transeptal organ chamber, chancel, N
chancel aisle, SE vestry.
EXTERIOR: W end with 2 paired lights under cusped roundel
flanked by buttresses with set-offs which project to clasp
narthex which has 2 doorways to either side of a window
(formerly a doorway). 3-light aisle windows. 2-light windows
to aisles and spherical triangular windows to clerestory.
Porch with heavy low buttresses and contemporary wooden gates.
N chancel aisle with taller 2-light windows and more elaborate
moulded surrounds and ball-flower to cornice.
Prominent steeple: 3-stage tower with angle buttresses which
to the NE incorporate the stair turret; deeply recessed
2-light belfry openings; cornice and pyramidal spire. 5-light
E window.
INTERIOR: nave piers alternating octagonal and circular in
section, capitals with naturalistic foliage carving, moulded
arches under continuous hood mould. Clerestory windows in
richly moulded surrounds with shafts and hood-moulds and sills
with ball-flowers. Internal shafting also to aisle windows.
Arch-braced roof with collars, ashlar pieces and wind braces,
2 sets of side purlins and shafts on foliated stone corbels.
Chancel: 3-bay arcade to N with polished limestone circular
section piers, foliated capitals. Roof as to nave. S arch
gives access to organ chamber.
FITTINGS: stone reredos, a 2:3:2 gabled arcade with richly
crocketed and finialed framing texts on slate, forms a single
ensemble with the 2-seat sedilia to S. Pulpit, marble,
polygonal with open arcaded panels, cornice and corner shafts
to bowl and brass rails to polished limestone steps. Brass
eagle lectern. Communion rail with barley-sugar stems, some
clustered in groups of four, and foliated angle brackets.
Font: square section with chamfered corners, the bowl with
tapering profile and incised Celtic crosses all on four marble
shafts and large central pier. Wooden seating with traceried
frontals and ends.
STAINED GLASS: W (commemoration date, 1857) with 4 Evangelists
and their symbols; E, Scenes from the Life of Christ in shaped
panels against decorated background. Full complement of 1850s
glass to chancel aisle and sanctuary windows by different
makers.
An excellent church for its date in a serious
Ecclesiologically 'correct' style with a full set of fittings.
"The Ecclesiologist" considered it to be one of the finest
churches that had been built in north Devon in the C19, by an
architect whom elsewhere the journal had called one of the
best then working in England.
(The Buildings of England: Cherry B: Devon; 2nd ed.: London:
1989-: 502).

Listing NGR: SS5218847815

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17532629

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.

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