---
title: "St James the Great, Stoke Orchard"
description: "Located in Stoke Orchard, Gloucestershire. Built Nave c.1170; chancel 14th century. Diocese of Gloucester. Grade I. Norman and Decorated style."
category: "Church"
tags: ["Church","Church of England","Gloucestershire","Stoke Orchard","Grade I","Norman","Wall Paintings"]
canonical: "https://thebritishgazette.com/post/st-james-great-stoke-orchard"
pubDate: "2026-09-06T02:48:52.439Z"
dateModified: "2026-09-07T14:53:18.837Z"
location: "Stoke Orchard, Gloucestershire"
country: "England"
county: "Gloucestershire"
town: "Stoke Orchard"
address: "Stoke Orchard, Gloucestershire, GL52 7SH"
postcode: "GL52 7SH"
built: "Nave c.1170; chancel 14th century"
denomination: "Church of England"
dedications: ["James the Great"]
diocese: "Gloucester"
grade: "I"
style: "Norman and Decorated"
materials: "Limestone and limestone rubble, stone slate roof"
website: "http://severnsidebeneficewithtwyning.org.uk/"
openingHours: "Sorry, there are no regular opening times for this church."
parish: "Tredington St John the Baptist"
listEntryUrl: "https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1091878"
gridReference: "SO 917 282"
accessNotes: "Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets nearby"
---

# St James the Great, Stoke Orchard

The Chapel of St James the Great in Stoke Orchard, Gloucestershire, is a Grade I former chapel-of-ease whose late-twelfth-century nave holds the only surviving English wall-painting cycle of the life of St James of Compostela.

## Overview

Historic England dates the nave to about 1170 and the chancel to the fourteenth century. The church was long a chapel-of-ease to Bishops Cleeve (it was formerly listed as the Church of St Peter). Walls mix dressed limestone and rubble, with rendering on the west and south; the chancel is coursed limestone and blue lias under a stone-slate roof. A twelfth-century round-headed north door retains early strap hinges with animal-head decoration. A fourteenth-century bellcote stands at the east end of the nave.

Inside, a thirteenth-century pointed chancel arch sits on twelfth-century scalloped responds. The circular limestone font, with intersecting blind arcading, is twelfth-century. Wall paintings of five periods survive in the nave. The earliest scheme, of about 1190–1220, comprises twenty-eight scenes of the life of St James, restored in preference to later layers in 1953–55. Later fragments include a fifteenth-century St Christopher, a sixteenth-century black-letter text, seventeenth-century window borders and a crowned rose, and eighteenth-century texts with Hanoverian royal arms. A plastered coved nave ceiling is dated 1723. The church is in the Diocese of Gloucester and the Severnside Benefice.

## Further Information

- [Historic England list entry 1091878](https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1091878)
- [Severnside Benefice: Stoke Orchard](https://www.severnsidebeneficewithtwyning.org.uk/churches/stoke-orchard/wall-paintings/)