St James's Church, Chipping Campden

St James's stands at the end of Church Street in Chipping Campden, its tall Perpendicular tower visible from far along the valley. It is one of the great Cotswold wool churches, mostly rebuilt in the fifteenth century with money from the wool trade, and it holds the brass of William Grevel and the tomb of Sir Baptist Hicks. It is listed Grade I.

History

St James's was rebuilt by wool money on the site of a Norman church. Historic England's listing calls it a magnificent wool church and finds parts of the older building inside the new one: Norman work, a thirteenth-century south doorway, and fourteenth-century chancel walls over a vaulted crypt. The rest is Perpendicular, of the middle and later fifteenth century.

William Grevel and the wool merchants

William Grevel was probably the richest and most influential Cotswold wool merchant of his day. He held houses and land across Campden and bought manors from Lasborough to Milcote, and in 1397 he lent Richard II 300 marks. His will, made at Campden in April 1401, asked for burial in the church and left 100 marks towards new building work and £200 to pay four chaplains to say masses for ten years. His money, and that of the merchants who came after him, paid for the church you see.

Sir Baptist Hicks

Two centuries later the church gained a second patron. Sir Baptist Hicks, the London mercer who had bought the manor by 1610 and built Campden House beside the church, gave the pulpit in 1612, and is buried in the south chapel. His heir was his daughter Juliana, widow of Edward Noel, second Viscount Campden.

Saving the church

In 1911 the Campden artist F L Griggs helped to save the church from what the town's history society calls an absurd restoration. The glass in the eastern clerestory window is by Hardman.

What to look for

Start outside with the west tower, five stages high, with thin pilaster strips running its full height and joined by ogee arches at the parapet; the listing calls it the epitome of the Perpendicular style. Inside, the nave arcade is tall and light, its concave octagonal piers possibly the work of Henrie Winchcombe, who may also have worked at Northleach. Then look for:

• The brass of William Grevel and his first wife Mariona in the chancel floor, about 1.6m long, calling him the flower of the wool merchants of all England
• Sir Baptist Hicks's tomb under a marble canopied monument in the south chapel, possibly by Nicholas Stone
• Juliana Noel's monument of 1664 by Joshua Marshall, with standing effigies at the doors of heaven
• An Elizabethan strapwork monument to Thomas Smythe, who died in 1593
• The pulpit of 1612 and the brass eagle lectern
• The medieval embroidered cope and the set of altar hangings shown under the tower, which the church says are thought to be the oldest complete set in the country still in their original church

Outside, the path from Church Street to the porch runs between seventeenth and eighteenth-century headstones, and the ogee-capped gate lodges of Old Campden House stand beside the churchyard.

Visiting

St James's is open to visitors most days, with entry free and donations welcome. When we checked, the church's home page gave 11am to 4pm from Monday to Saturday in spring and summer and 11am to 3pm in autumn and winter, with Sunday opening from 12.30pm; its other pages give slightly different times. Funerals, concerts and Saturday weddings can limit visiting, so check with the church office before a special trip.

A Church Near You lists a ramp in the porch that can be used at any time, a hearing loop, large print and toilets. Guided tours can be arranged, and leaders of organised groups are asked to contact the office before they come. The church holds concerts through the year and a music festival in May.

Getting there

By car, park in Back Ends, where the Cotswolds National Landscape asks walkers to park, or in the Market Square car park on the High Street (GL55 6AW), free for 20 minutes and then charged from 7am to 7pm by card or phone, then walk down Church Street, about 600m from the Market Hall. Stagecoach buses 1, 1A, 2 and 2A run between Stratford-upon-Avon and Moreton-in-Marsh station through the town, about every one to two hours from Monday to Saturday, with a few on Sundays.

On foot, Chipping Campden from Broad Campden, a 3.3-mile (5.3km) loop, comes into the town by the church and the gateway of Old Campden House. The Cotswold Way starts at the Market Hall at the other end of the High Street.

Nearby

Next door are the lodges and gateway of Old Campden House, and Court Barn, the museum of the Arts and Crafts makers in Campden. The almshouses line Church Street on the way back to the High Street, past the Eight Bells inn, a few steps from the almshouses. On the High Street are Grevel's House, Woolstaplers' Hall and the Market Hall, and the Bantam Tea Rooms for tea. Our story on the wool churches of the Cotswolds puts St James's beside Northleach, Cirencester and Fairford, and the Campden Wonder tells the town's strangest story.