Church of St James the Apostle

About

St James' Church is the parish church of Birstwith, a village in North Yorkshire in England. The church was commissioned by John Frederick Greenwood, a local mill owner. It was designed by Rohde Hawkins and built between 1856 and 1857, in a late 13th-/early 14th-century Gothic style.

A vestry and organ chamber were added in 1887. The church was Grade II listed in 1987. The church is built in gritstone with grey slate roofs.

It consists of a nave, north and south aisles, a north porch, a chancel, a vestry and organ chamber, and a west steeple. The 100 foot steeple has a tower with three stages, diagonal buttresses, a band, bell openings with pointed arches and hood moulds, and a broach spire with one tier of lucarnes. Inside, there are pews probably dating from 1887, a chancel arch with carvings of grapes and wheat, and a reredos with figures in alabaster and glass mosaic.

The organ was made by Binns, and the National Churches Trust states that the church has "some splendid stained glass".