Church of St James the Less

Details

SU 6376
6/12

PANGBOURNE
PANGBOURNE HILL (north side)
Church of St James the Less

14.4.67

G.V.
II*

Church. West tower dated 1718 on various bricks and stones, rest of 1866 by J. Woodman in a Decorated Gothic style. Flint with Bath stone dressings and tiled roofs, separately over nave and aisle. Tower of red brick with grey diaper work and Bath stone dressings. West tower, nave, north aisle, chancel, south porch and vestry.

Tower: two stages. Plinth, string courses, rusticated quoins and coped battlemented parapet with corner obelisks and weathervanes. Round arched louvred bellstage openings on each face, with clock above to east and stone plaque beneath to south. Circular seconed stage openings to north, south and west, with clock above and stone plaque below to south, and with stone plaque to west. First stage six-light mullioned and transomed window to west and round boarded door to south.

Nave: plinth, cill string and parapeted gable ends. Four bays. Two-light windows with cusped Y-tracery and hoodmoulds with carved stops. Shafted south doorway in second bay from left with hoodmould, carved stops and two boarded doors. Gabled south porch with angle buttresses; moulded archway with cusping, hoodmould with carved stops, and two boarded doors; two light windows in east and west faces.

Chancel: plinth, cill string, angle buttresses and parapeted gable end. Two bays. Two-light cusped windows with hoodmoulds and carved stops, and large four-light east window with hoodmould and carved stops.

Vestry: two-light square headed east window and three-light window with hoodmould and carved stops in set back gable end above. Two two-light segmental headed windows to north. C20 addition to north with boarded door to west.

North aisle: plinth, cill string and angle buttresses. Four-bays. Two-light cusped windows with returned hoodmoulds, and five-light west window.

Interior: very rich with much carving and moulding. Nave: four bay north aisle arcade with round piers, moulded capitals and bases, and hoodmould. Eight-bay roof with cusped arch bracing, double purlins and windbraces. Two-light arched opening at east end of north aisle. Moulded chancel arch with carved capitals. Chancel: two bay arcade to north with central granite pier, moulded arches and foliated capitals; windows with nook shafts and hoodmoulds. Oge aumbry to north, piscina to south-east; three bay roof with arch braced collars and windbraces.

Fittings include: C17 octagonal wooden pulpit with blank arches and C19 stone base, and C19 octagonal stone font.

Monuments include: large chest tomb to Sir John Davis of 1625 with three recumbent effigies and coupled Tuscan columns supporting triangular pediment; tablet to Martha, Anne and Mary Sucklinge of 1658-61 with broken segmental pediment (their brother, the poet Sir John Sucklinge, is reputed to have invented cribbage); tablet to the engineer Sir Benjamin Baker of 1907 with relief of the Forth bridge. Other C18 and C19 monuments, and two hatchments.

Listing NGR: SU6342076420

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

398019

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Berkshire, (1975), 191-192
Ditchfield, P H, Page, W, The Victoria History of the County of Berkshire, (1923), 329-336

Websites
British Geological Survey, Strategic Stone Study, accessed 5 February 2020 from https://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/buildingStones/StrategicStoneStudy/EH_atlases.html

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