St. James, Hemingford Grey, Huntingdonshire

Description

The church of St. James is an ancient structure, in the Norman and Early English styles, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, south porch and an embattled western tower with pinnacles containing 6 bells and a clock, placed in 1884, at a cost of £100; the bells were rehung in 1883, at a cost of £42, and a chiming apparatus was put up in 1875, at a cost of £8; the tower was formerly surmounted by a spire, blown down September 8, 1741, but the base still remains: the stained east window and another on the south side of the chancel are memorials to the late John Lawrence esq. and there are others to Mrs. Geldart (in 1893) and Ernest Alfred Ebsworth esq.: on the east end wall are the Lord's Prayer and the Belief, painted in medæval characters by the late Mrs. C. F. Hayter, daughter of the late Rev. Peregrine Curtois LL.B. vicar 1849-68, who also worked and presented the altar cloth; within the rails is a tablet of white marble, with a Latin inscription, to James Johnson LL.D. Chancellor of Ely, d. Feb. 1727: there are also monuments to the Greene and Margetts families, a double piscina, in the sanctuary, of Late Norman work, an aumbry, and a single piscina in the south aisle: a new organ was provided in 1905: in 1859 the church was thoroughly restored, at a cost of nearly £1,200, when the porch and north aisle were rebuilt and a vestry erected: the font was presented by the late Mrs. Geldart: there are 350 sittings.

Church Records

The parish register of baptisms dates from the year 1673; marriages and burials, 1674.