Church of St James

Details

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

SP25NW CHURCH LANE, Alveston 604-1/2/276 (East side) 09/02/72 Church of St James

II

Church. 1839. By William Walker. East end added 1876; C20 vestry. Snecked stone with ashlar dressings; tile roof with enriched crests. PLAN: 2-bay chancel with north organ loft/vestry and south chapel; 7-bay nave with south porch and west tower. Details in Early English style; plinth, sill courses, single-chamfered windows and coped gables. EXTERIOR: chancel has offset angle buttresses and gable cross; east window of 5 stepped lancets, and lancets to north and south. Organ loft has angle buttresses and stepped triplet of lancets and gable cross, no sill course; C20 vestry to re-entrant with straight-headed mullioned windows. Double-gabled south chapel has 2-light plate tracery windows and C19 rainwater head; lateral stack. Nave has top cornice, splayed lancets between shallow offset buttresses; diagonal buttresses to west. Porch to centre of south side has double-chamfered pointed entrance, paired doors with Y-tracery motif. Late C20 entrance to south of tower. 3-stage tower has gabled angle buttresses becoming clasping buttresses to upper stages; triple-chamfered pointed west entrance has paired doors with strap hinges, rose window above; return lancets; 2nd stage has stepped triplets of lancets below clock faces; top stage has 2-light plate tracery bell openings, louvred below blind heads; top cornice and crenellated parapet with plain pinnacles. INTERIOR: chancel has richly carved arch-braced roof; arch to organ loft and trefoil-headed credence recess; 2-bay south arcade with arches dying into jambs and chamfered square pier; applied arcading to east end has marble shafts and rich painting; moulded chancel arch. Nave has simple hammer beam roof; late C20 glazed-in narthex and gallery with earlier staircase with turned balusters. FITTINGS: chancel has stalls with tracery to panelled fronts, and panelling to chapel; altar rail with traceried frieze on posts. Chapel noted as having re-set C17 panelling. Nave has rood screen in the style of Bodley and Garner across the width of the east end incorporating entrances to vestry and chapel, panels and doors with pierced tracery below open scrolly tracery panels between shafts supporting coved rood loft with vine-trail cornice and brattishing; rood to chancel arch has crucifix with crocketing and fleurs-de-lys and figures of Our Lady and St John; painted latin texts to coving; C19 font in narthex. MEMORIALS: several interesting wall tablets including tablet to 3 women who died from the effects of sleeping in a room with a coke fire, 1835-6, and 2 richly carved Gothic style tablets dated 1848 and 1872. Wall painting: chancel has figures flanking east window, possibly remaining from more extensive scheme; nave has painting to chancel arch and 4 flanking shields. A replacement for the original Church of St James to the NW of the village, of which the chancel remains (qv). (Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Warwickshire: London: 1966-: 65).

Listing NGR: SP2319256349

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

366185

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Wedgwood, A, The Buildings of England: Warwickshire, (1966), 65

End of official list entry

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