Parish Church of Saint Philip and St James

PARISH CHURCH OF SAINT PHILIP AND ST JAMES, ST JAMES' PLACE

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Overview

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II*
List Entry Number:
1292875
Date first listed:
16-Mar-1992
List Entry Name:
Parish Church of Saint Philip and St James
Statutory Address:
PARISH CHURCH OF SAINT PHILIP AND ST JAMES, ST JAMES' PLACE
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Date:
2001-07-26
Reference:
IOE01/05165/24
Rights:
© Dr Barbara Hilton. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II*
List Entry Number:
1292875
Date first listed:
16-Mar-1992
List Entry Name:
Parish Church of Saint Philip and St James
Statutory Address 1:
PARISH CHURCH OF SAINT PHILIP AND ST JAMES, ST JAMES' PLACE

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:
PARISH CHURCH OF SAINT PHILIP AND ST JAMES, ST JAMES' PLACE

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:
Devon
District:
North Devon (District Authority)
Parish:
Ilfracombe
National Grid Reference:
SS 52188 47815

Details

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

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:
390266
Legacy System:
LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Devon, (1989), 502

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

Ordnance survey map of Parish Church of Saint Philip and St James

Map

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End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

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