Cathedral Church of St James, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Entry Name: Cathedral Church of St James

Listing Date: 7 August 1952

Grade: I

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1377001

English Heritage Legacy ID: 466649

Also known as: Cathedral Church of St James and St Edmund

ID on this website: 101377001

Location: St James' Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds, West Suffolk, IP33

County: Suffolk

District: West Suffolk

Civil Parish: Bury St Edmunds

Built-Up Area: Bury St Edmunds

Traditional County: Suffolk

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Suffolk

Church of England Parish: Bury St Edmunds St Mary

Church of England Diocese: St.Edmundsbury and Ipswich

Tagged with: Gothic architecture Anglican or episcopal cathedral

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Bury Saint Edmunds

Description

BURY ST EDMUNDS

TL8564SE ANGEL HILL
639-1/8/187 (East side)
07/08/52 Cathedral Church of St James

GV I

Parish church; became the Cathedral church of the Diocese of
St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in 1914. Early C16, on an earlier
site; by John Wastell, master mason at the Abbey of St Edmund.
C19 alterations by GG Scott, partly replaced by further
extensions of 1960-70 by SE Dykes Bower. Faced in coursed
squared limestone on the south and west apart from the
clerestory which is in rubble flint. A steeply-pitched stone
slate roof to the nave.
PLAN: nave, north and south aisles, crossing and transepts,
chancel and an incomplete central tower.
EXTERIOR: cloister range on the north. The nave, begun in
1503, was completed c1550. In 9 bays. A range of eighteen
2-light windows with cusped heads to the clerestory. 9 bays to
each aisle with a range of 3-light windows, panelled and
cusped, and stepped full-height buttresses between them. Doors
below the windows in the 4th and 8th bays. Battlemented
parapets. A 5-light transomed window to the embattled west end
of each aisle and a very large transomed 7-light west window
to the nave with a decorated base. Diagonal buttresses with
ornate panelling to the aisles.
The pinnacled west gable was designed by Scott, but the
chancel, rebuilt to his design in 1865-9, was demolished to
make way for the work of the 1960s, still not fully completed.
This is in a Tudoresque style using a combination of Clipsham
and Doulting stone with flint flushwork panels to the outer
walls.
INTERIOR of the nave is very high with arcades of 9 bays to
north and south. The piers are lozenge-shaped with 4 thin
shafts and 4 broad hollows in the diagonals. The
brightly-painted roof, replaced by Scott, has arched-braced
hammer-beam trusses and is in 18 short bays. Every alternate
hammer-beam has a carved figure bearing a shield. A
heavily-decorated cornice and frieze.
(BOE: Pevsner N: Radcliffe E: Suffolk: London: 1974-: 141).

Listing NGR: TL8559764117

External Links

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