St James' Church Christleton History

The foreword from David Cummings booklet on St James' Church, Christleton - available in the church.

Grade II★ Listed with Kempe windows

St James’ Church is recorded in Historic England Records as a Grade II listed building, in the Gothic Revival style, and in 2016, the Village War Memorial in the church grounds was added to the National List, also as Grade II listed. Other national listings include; the sundial, the headstone of William Huggins, the Lychgate, and the churchyard as a War Graves site by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The fine alabaster Boer War Memorial on the west wall of the nave is also recorded nationally. The beautiful stained glass memorial windows at St James, designed by Charles Earmer Kemp & Company and installed between 1894 –1909, are listed in the Corpus of Kempe Stained Glass in the UK.

Local history & credits

In this version of the history of St James’ Christleton I have drawn largely on the writings and collection of archive papers of the late former Rector Arthur Alyn Guest Williams as the basis for the story, and have used the knowledge and expertise of members of the Christleton Local History Group to help bring it into fruition. I am grateful for the support of the local community, and from former Rectors, Canon Lawrie Skipper, Archdeacon David Garnett, Canon K Peter Lee, and Reverend Malcolm Cowan, for their help and support. In this edition I am able to include material from the Christleton Great War Stories Book, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and published in 2015, which not only includes stories of the fallen, but of the men, women and children left behind. They too had a courageous story to tell, and gave selfless service to the local community and their country.

War stories Book dedication

I dedicate this book to the memory of Margaret Croston BEM who died in October 2016. Margaret was a unique lady, someone who contributed so much to the village and people of Christleton, and the wider community of the City of Chester, for over 50years. She was a kind, generous, loving and specially gifted person who devoted her life to the service of others.

Deeper inside St James' Church history

If you would like to delve deeper into the historical background of St James' church and learn more about past communities in the parish then you need not look any further. The link below will enable you to see a beautifully archived history and image gallery of years gone by all the way up to present day St James' church. This link will take you to the Christleton village website built by Paul Nicholson. The history and highly researched content was provided by Mr David Cummings B.E.M. and artwork provided by the Late former Headmaster of Christleton High School and local artist Mr Phil Hodges.

This fascinating history is accompanied by detailed photography. We will share with you a little piece of local history, with some interesting information about the Kempe stained-glass windows, the knave, and will explain in greater detail about the charming tapestries which you can see on the right hand church wall which was made by local primary schools during the 1990's.