St James' Church, Birstwith

St James' Church is the parish church of Birstwith, a village in North Yorkshire in England.

The church was commissioned by John Frederick Greenwood, a local mill owner. It was designed by Rohde Hawkins and built between 1856 and 1857, in a late 13th-/early 14th-century Gothic style. A vestry and organ chamber were added in 1887. The church was Grade II listed in 1987.^[1]^[2]

The church is built in gritstone with grey slate roofs. It consists of a nave, north and south aisles, a north porch, a chancel, a vestry and organ chamber, and a west steeple. The 100 foot steeple has a tower with three stages, diagonal buttresses, a band, bell openings with pointed arches and hood moulds, and a broach spire with one tier of lucarnes. Inside, there are pews probably dating from 1887, a chancel arch with carvings of grapes and wheat, and a reredos with figures in alabaster and glass mosaic. The organ was made by Binns, and the National Churches Trust states that the church has "some splendid stained glass".^[1]^[2]^[3]

References

^ ^a ^b "Church of St James the Apostle". National Heritage List for England. Historic England. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
^ ^a ^b Leach, Peter; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2009). Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North. The Buildings of England. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12665-5.
^ "St James the Apostle". National Churches Trust. Retrieved 15 March 2024.