Nikolaus Pevsner: Hadleigh: St James The Less

Additional building on North side

Lilywhite, Sowerby Bridge / Ben Grew / H&TCA

The notice board attracts attention

Ben Grew / H&TCA

Printed in Germany and posted for a ha'penny

IXL / Ben Grew / H&TCA

Here are some of the images of the Grade I listed church in Hadleigh, Essex;  distributed and used as postcards during the 20th Century.

Pevsner’s 2nd Edition includes this summary:
“A complete little Norman church, essentially unaltered, but unfortunately placed immediately S of an A-road with unsightly shops and shacks near its E end. (*)    This E end is apsed. A chancel precedes the apse, a nave the chancel. At the W end a boarded belfry resting inside on a free-standing four-post structure, the only later (C15) addition. Otherwise only a few windows are not original: nave N one C13 lancet, chancel S one two-light Dec window, nave S one two-light Perp window.

FONT. Made up of various parts.  The best is the lower part of the bowl with stiff-leaf growing diagonally.

PAINTINGS. Very remarkable fragments. In the nave NE lancet demi-figure of St Thomas of Canterbury of c.1275.”

Key:   E = east,  S = south,  W = west,  N = north.

Dec = Decorated: historical division of English Gothic architecture from c. 1290 to c. 1350. The name is derived from the type of window tracery used during the period.

Perp = Perpendicular:  historical division of English Gothic architecture covering the period from c. 1335-50 to c.1530.  The name is derived from the upright tracery panels used during the period.

{ (*) Ed: The “unsightly shops and shacks”  have been removed.
The picture gallery is a selection from postcards acquired in May 2022.
Pevsner’s first edition was published in 1954 and the second edition in 1965. }