St James, Edgcote

St James's is a Grade I parish church at Edgcote, West Northamptonshire, in the Diocese of Peterborough. It stands with the manor house, rectory and dovecote in an isolated group overlooking the site of the 1469 Battle of Edgcote.

Overview

Historic England dates the church to the early thirteenth century, with Decorated and Perpendicular work. Fabric is coursed limestone and ironstone rubble, an ashlar west tower and a lead roof. The plan is chancel, north vestry, nave and south aisle, south porch and west tower. The chancel has three-light Perpendicular windows. The north nave wall has two-light Decorated windows with flowing tracery and a fourteenth-century doorway with a holy water stoup. The south porch is fourteenth century; the inner doorway is thirteenth century with bell capitals.

The three-bay early thirteenth-century south arcade has double-chamfered arches and round piers, one capital carved with heads. A seventeenth-century manorial pew projects between nave and chancel. The Church Heritage Record notes box pews, an eighteenth-century pulpit and a large family pew, with alabaster tomb chests of the early Chauncys in the south chapel and later memorials by Rysbrack to Richard Chauncey, who rebuilt Edgcote House in 1747-52. The church is normally locked; contact numbers are on the noticeboard.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1041169
• British Listed Buildings: Church of St James, Edgcote