Church of St James London, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

59/0/10104 BODLEY ROAD 04-MAR-10 CHURCH OF ST JAMES

II Church: 1931-3 by JE Newberry and CW Fowler in a restrained Perpendicular manner typical of the inter-war churches designed by the practice. The church was damaged in an air raid in 1944 but was carefully restored by CW Fowler and work was completed in 1954. It was one of Southwark Diocese's Twenty Five Churches, built at the inspiration of Dr CF Garbett.

MATERIALS: red brick with stone dressings and with slate roofs. The interior is faced in unpainted buff brick; the roof is of Columbian pine, fittings are of oak and pine.

PLAN: It has a five-bay, buttressed, aisled nave and two bay chancel with an apsidal buttressed sanctuary which has a shallow hipped roof, which throughout has plain oversailing eaves. Attached to the south side of the chancel by a narrow external link is a four-stage tower. At the west end of the nave are north and south porches. Opening off the chancel to the north is a two-bay chapel, expressed externally as a transept and lower eastern bay while, to the south, vestries fill the lower stages of the tower. A single-storey hipped-roofed priest's vestry is attached to the east of the tower.

EXTERIOR: Aisle windows have five cusped lights under a wide cambered brick arch, while clerestory windows have three-light panel tracery. The seven-light west window with Perpendicular tracery is flanked by three-light aisle windows. North and south porches have pitched roofs behind gabletted parapets, and windows with brick mullions. Entrances are set back under four-centred brick arches and each has a pair of panelled doors. The tower is slightly battered, with very slightly set back buttresses, and a solid parapet. It is almost without embellishment except for the coping of the parapet which reflects the pointed arches of the bell chamber windows. The lower stage of the south face of the tower has a four-light window with brick mullions and transoms, above which is a stair window of three narrow vertical lights. Louvred bell chamber windows are of two cusped lights beneath a hoodmould. Windows on the vestry attached to the east of the tower have tall narrow window openings which echo those on the tower. Two-light clerestorey windows to the chancel are set high in the wall above a continuous moulded brick band, drawing light into the sanctuary from a high level in a manner similar to those at St Hilda, Crofton Park. A tall north transept projects slightly beyond the aisle and eastern bay of the Lady Chapel, and has a large five-light window with panel tracery while the east window of the chapel is of three lights with a tall cusped central panel.

INTERIOR: The interior is of unpainted buff brick. Arcades have quadrilateral piers with plain chamfered arrises, and slender wall shafts rising to carry a simple arcade above the clerestorey windows, a pattern repeated in the sanctuary. At the crossing, tall arches with multiple mouldings open onto the transept to the north and house the organ chamber to the south, while the arch to the Lady Chapel is set under a blind arcaded panel. Circulation at the east end continues through the Lady Chapel which opens onto the sanctuary and through a narrow ambulatory passage beneath the organ loft to the south, in a manner also similar to St Hilda Crofton Park. Aisle windows are set back under plain cambered arches and have red tile cills and mostly rectangular leaded lights. In contrast with the simplicity of the walls, the nave roof is scissor-braced, with exposed purlins, while the aisles have two tiers of purlins, each supported by kingposts with longitudinal braces. Nave and aisle floor are of Granwood blocks.

The interior retains most of its original finishes and fittings augmented by more recent donations such as memorial glass, statuary and Stations of the Cross. Fittings are of oak and pine and include doors, the pulpit and chancel seating,