St James's Church in

Draycot Cerne Draycot Cerne (Draycott) is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Sutton Benger, in Wiltshire, England, about north of Chippenham. History The parish was referred to as ''Draicote'' (Medieval Latin) in the ancient D ...

, Sutton Benger, Wiltshire, England was built between 1260 and 1280. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

, and is now a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It was declared redundant on 1 June 1994, and was

vested In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property are acquired by some Legal person, person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vest ...

in the Trust on 17 May 1995. The church stands in parkland near the site of Draycot House, a manor house demolished c. 1955. The name of the church has been changed over the centuries. It was All Saints' in the later 12th century and St. Peter's in the 18th century; it has been St James since the later 19th century. The church has an Early English

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

which is lower than the floor of the 13th-century

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

. The two-stage west tower dates from the 16th or 17th century and is supported by diagonal

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 (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

es. The church was altered and restored in the 19th century. There were wall paintings in the chancel in the 15th and 16th centuries. The interior includes a Gothic

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...

and box pews. There are also Victorian

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

windows by

Ward and Hughes Ward and Hughes (formerly Ward and Nixon) was the name of an English company producing stained-glass windows. History Ward and Hughes was preceded by the company Ward and Nixon, whose studio was at 67 Frith Street, Soho. They created a large w ...

and monuments including a

Perpendicular In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...

tomb chest and a 13th-century knight's effigy, of either Phillip or John de Cerne. A memorial bust by Joseph Wilton to Sir Robert Long is set on a marble bracket designed by

James Wyatt James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the Neoclassicism, neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to ...

. The gothic painted tomb of Sir Thomas Long is within the church, along with tombs and memorials to members of the Long family. Some of the oldest tombs are to the de Cerne family from the 12th and 13th centuries. Sir Edward de Cerne is commemorated with a

monumental brass A monumental brass is a type of engraved church monument, sepulchral memorial once found through Western Europe, which in the 13th century began to partially take the place of three-dimensional church monument, monuments and effigy, effigies carve ...

on his tombstone. Henry of Cerne was the rector of the church in 1304.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Draycot Cerne, Saint James 13th-century church buildings in England Church of England church buildings in Wiltshire Grade II* listed churches in Wiltshire Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust Former Church of England church buildings Former churches in Wiltshire Buildings and structures completed in 1280 Churches completed in the 1280s

See also

References