St James' church - Jacobstow, Cornwall
Posted by: 
SMacB
N 50° 44.045 W 004° 33.290
30U E 390278 N 5621407
Anglican church of St James, Jacobstow, Cornwall.
Waymark Code: WMZCTV
Location: South West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/21/2018
Views: 0
"Jacobstow Churchtown lies about a mile off the busy A39 at Wainhouse Corner, midway between Bude and Camelford. It is an idyllic setting for the parish church, a wooded hollow formed by two streams; the sycamore, copper beech and willow that enclose the churchyard on three sides form a magnificent backdrop to the 15th Century church with its impressive tower. Nearby are cottages, the Rectory, the old Victorian school and the purpose built modern primary school all nestling out of the wind that blows from the Atlantic coast three miles away.
The church is dedicated to St James and there is evidence of a former Saxon church on the same site. The present church is mediaeval, with a nave and chancel and north and south aisles dating from the 15th Century, but representing a rebuilding of an earlier Norman one. Restored in the 19th Century, and improved in recent times, it continues to reflect the way in which the church adapts to change in taste, fashion, architecture and patterns of worship.
The three-stage battlemented granite tower houses a ring of six bells. The font is Norman of the Altarnun type and the altar is an Elizabethan communion table. An ancient altar stone is in the south aisle chapel: it was the main altar stone up to about 1550 in the reign of Edward VI when the Church of England was becoming more Protestant and an act required that all altar stones should be removed. This one became a footbridge over a stream. It was found and moved back to the churchyard as a seat in the 1800s, and installed in the south aisle chapel in 1972. The nails that form the cross on the base of the altar are 15th century, and were saved from roof restoration work in 1970."
SOURCE - (
visit link)