St James' Church, Norlands, is a historic listed church in London, United Kingdom. It is affiliated with the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

. It was designed by architects

Lewis Vulliamy Lewis Vulliamy (15 March 1791 – 4 January 1871) was an English architect descended from the Vulliamy family of clockmakers. Life Lewis Vulliamy was the son of the clockmaker Benjamin Vulliamy. He was born in Pall Mall, London on 15 March 179 ...

and

Robert Jewell Withers Robert Jewell Withers (1824–1894) was an English ecclesiastical architect. Early life Robert Jewell Withers was born on 2 February 1824 in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England. His father was John Alexander Withers and his mother, Maria Jewell. ...

, and its construction was completed in 1845. The church was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

on 17 July of the same year. It is listed as Grade II by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

. The church is built of white Suffolk bricks and is orientated east to west with the tower positioned south of the central bay. The entrance is through a

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

, built into base of the tower, facing down Addison Avenue. The simple body of the church makes the three-stage tower, built in 1850, stand out. The first stage has gabled

Buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es with roll-moulded edges. The second stage has a clock-face set in on each side and is considerably shorter than any other stage. The final belfry stage has two deeply-recessed paired lancets flanked by single blind lancet panels. There is a drawing in Kensington Public Library which shows that the tower was designed to have been topped with a

broach spire A broach spire is a type of spire (tall pyramidal structure), which usually sits atop a tower or turret of a church. It starts on a square base and is carried up to a tapering octagonal spire by means of triangular faces. File:Leicester Cathedral ...

, however, this was never built, and the tower seems somewhat abrupt and unfinished without it, as the thin octagonal pinnacles on each corner stand out against the sky. St James, St James's Gardens, Norlands, London W11 - East end - geograph

St James, St James's Gardens, Norlands, London W11 - East end - geograph

Vulliamy's original design provided polygonal apsidal projections at the east and west ends, but these were never built. In 1876 the eastern end was extended by the architect, R. J. Withers. These extensions provide the present

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

vestries A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquially ...

and an organ chamber. The church is set in a small garden square, which is laid out in an informal style and is mainly two

lawn A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawnmower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. L ...

areas with planting at the edges. The views are dominated by the mature

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelat ...

and lime trees which surround the garden. These gardens are private and used by adjacent properties, and only open to the public occasionally.

Present day

The

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

of " St. Clement with St. Mark, Notting Dale and St. James, Norlands" is part of the Archdeaconry of Middlesex in the

Diocese of London The Diocese of London forms part of the Church of England's Province of Canterbury in England. It lies directly north of the Thames. For centuries the diocese covered a vast tract and bordered the dioceses of Norwich and Lincoln to the north ...

. The church stands in the Liberal Catholic

tradition A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

of the

References

Holland Park Church of England church buildings in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Grade II listed churches in London Churches completed in 1845 Norlands {{London-stub