St James The Great Church | Cradley

CRADLEY
Dedication: St James The Great
OS Grid Reference: SO 735 472
Road Reference: Off A4103

Facilities:

Information:

09.00 – 18.00 summer, 09.00 – 16.00 winter.

St James’ Church has been a place of Christian worship for many centuries. An early entry of Cradley as ‘Credelaie’ in Domesday Book in 1086 (‘Creoda’s clearing), mentions a priest with half a hide (60 acres) of land, although no church is specifically indicated. It is quite possible that a church existed here in Cradley before the Normans came, though there is no concrete evidence of this.

It has been suggested that the carved Saxon stone on the outside of the north wall of the tower could have been part of a ‘becun’ or monument which missionaries would erect to indicate a Christian meeting place before a church was built.

The theory that the unusual structure of the inside of the lower tower, with its beams and plaster, are part of an earlier church, is interesting but is considered by experts to be unlikely.

Clear evidence, however, of a Norman church can be seen in the well-preserved south doorway with its chevron decoration and also in the lower part of the tower.

The upper part of the tower is later and dates from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, with windows of that period, with trefoiled lights and vertical tracery. The columns of the archway between the nave and the tower probably date from the late twelfth century.

The church clock was installed by public subscription as a memorial to those who died in World War I.

Six bells were cast in 1724 at the Gloucester foundry by Abraham Rudhall and re-hung in 1884 by Taylors of Loughborough. They were hung in an oak frame, part of which dates from the seventeenth century and incorporates earlier beams thought to be mediaeval. This frame became unsafe for ringing and in celebration of the millennium the six bells were re-tuned and two new bells were cast which all hang on a new metal frame placed in the chamber below the oak frame which remains in the top of the tower.

The font is dated 1771 and bears the name of an eighteenth-century Rector, the Reverend Thomas Bisse. Brother of the Bishop of Hereford he was a great music lover and was instrumental in inaugurating the Three Choirs Festival.

There is a particularly beautiful window to the north of the altar depicting St Francis of Assisi surrounded by birds and animals of the countryside, which was the work of the Bromsgrove Guild. It commemorates the Reverend Ayscough, who was Rector from 1892 to 1917, and his wife. He researched the history of the church and village, publishing a church guide and many articles in the parish magazine and Malvern Gazette.

The lych-gate is partly sixteen century with restoration work carried out in 1988. The yew tree in the churchyard is certified as being 1200 years old. The sundial was constructed from part of a churchyard cross of tufa stone and restored to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee.

An audit of the memorials and tombstones was carried out in 2000.

Baptisms, Marriages and Burials Registers date from the year 1560.