Southbroom, Wiltshire

St. James (parish church)

The parish church of Southbroom, dedicated to St. James (formerly an old chapelry of Bishop's Cannings, but constituted a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1832) stands on the Green, Southbroom, within the borough of Devizes. It was rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 1834, and is of stone in the Late Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave of three bays, aisles, south and west porches and an embattled western tower with turret and pinnacles, and containing 6 bells: in the chancel is a credence with trefoil-headed arch, and on each side of the east window are two canopied niches; the stained east window is a memorial to Edward Francis Colston, of Roundway, d. 1847; and there are other memorial windows to the Rev. John Nicholas LL.D. d. 1836, and his family, and one placed in 1902 as a memorial to Mrs. R. Colston and her eldest son: the west window is also stained: there are brasses to the Rev. Benjamin C. Dowding M.A. d. 1870, and to John Frederick Nicholls M.D. surgeon to the 3rd battalion Wiltshire Regiment, d. 1885, and other officers and men of the Wiltshire Regiment, and marble monuments to Bridget Nicholas, d. 1752, Edward G. M. Colston, d. 1859, besides other mural monuments and tablets: the brass lectern was the gift of Lt.-Col. Arthur H. Longley. On June 11, 1902, the old colours of the 99th (later 2nd Batt. Wilts Regt.) were hung above the memorial window to the officers and men of this Regiment who fell in the Zulu war: these colours, presented in 1841, and carried in many campaigns, were in 1871 given to H.R.H. the late Duke of Edinburgh, whose name the Regiment bore, and on his death were returned to Gen. J. H. Dunne, colonel of the Regiment, by whom they were here deposited. Here also are deposited the colours of the 3rd Wilts Regiment. The church was reseated throughout in 1897 by A. Grant Meek esq. of Devizes, and affords 592 sittings.