Description

ENFIELD

790/6/196 HERTFORD ROAD
19-MAR-51 ENFIELD HIGHWAY
(East side)
CHURCH OF ST JAMES

(Formerly listed as:
HERTFORD ROAD
ENFIELD HIGHWAY
CHURCH OF ST JAMES)

II

1831 by W C Lochner, chancel added in 1864. Chancel rebuilt and internal modifications in 1969 by J Barrington Baker and Partners following a fire in 1967.

MATERIALS:
Nave and tower are stock brick, the chancel and vestries are roughly dressed coursed stone with stone dressings. Slate roofs. Interior plastered and painted.

PLAN:
Chancel and nave the same width. Chancel with N and E vestries, un-aisled nave with W tower over the W bay of the nave.

EXTERIOR:
The nave is tall and square, in a typical Commissioners' Gothic style. The embattled W tower, positioned over the W bay of the nave, has small polygonal corner buttresses that rise above the parapet to become small turrets with pointed caps. The W window has a rich ogee frame. The very tall nave walls are also embattled and have similar polygonal buttresses rising to tiny corner turrets. Two-light aisle windows with transoms in a vaguely Perp style. The chancel has a large 6-light Tudor-style S window. No E window, that from 1864 having been removed, presumably in 1969. The upper part of the E gable wall is rebuilt in brick. Small lean-to E vestry, possibly a relic of the older chancel. North vestry, now a parish room, in Early English style, a remnant of the 1864 work.

INTERIOR:
The interior is plain, but spacious and light filled with very large windows. W bay of the nave is divided off to form an internal western narthex also providing access to the W gallery. Wide nave is undivided internally, with W gallery on cast iron columns. Gallery has wooden front with trefoil arched panelling. Doors with 4-centred heads to stairs and an internal window with Y tracery. The chancel arch and the flanking arches leading from the nave into N and S chancel chapels were removed in the 1969 rebuilding, leaving only small wall stubs. The arches from the chancel into the N and S chancel chapels were also removed, leaving the chancel the same width as the nave, the sanctuary differentiated only by two shallow steps. Nave roof C19 with very shallow 4-centred arched trusses with foiled spandrels and diamond panels along a ridge rib, but only the beams are now painted, and the decoration on the bed of the ceiling shown in early photos has been lost. Chancel ceiling has the same profile as that in the nave, although without the beams; another change of 1969 as the1864 chancel had a more steeply pitched roof.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES:
Simple C19 benches and matching choir stalls in the nave. In the chancel, a bust of a woman on a stiff-leaf corbelled bracket, and above her an angel holding a book. Very rich octagonal C19 font with quatrefoil panels, angels supporting the bowl, and a very elaborate micro-architecture timber cover.

HISTORY:
Built in 1830-1, architect William Lochner, in Commissioners Gothic style as a chapel of ease to the parish church of St Andrew in Enfield Town, which was by then very overcrowded. It became a perpetual curacy in 1834 serving a parish in the eastern part of Enfield. An Early English style chancel was added in 1864. N and S galleries were removed in the mid C20 (BoE says 1952) and after a fire in 1967, the chancel was wholly remodelled in 1969 by J Barrington-Baker and Partners.

SOURCES:
Lambeth Palace Library ICBS File 1042
Baker, T F T and Pugh, R B eds, Victoria County History: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5 (1976), pp. 245-249
Cherry, B and Pevsner, N. The Buildings of England London 4: North (1999), p. 437
Church website http://www.stjameschurch.cc/

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
St James', Enfield, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* A highly characteristic example of a Commissioners' Gothic church in brick, sympathetically renovated in the C20.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St James' Church, Enfield Highway at Wikipedia
• St James' Church, Enfield Highway official website
• Wikidata Q7593436

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

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  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
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  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas