The parish was carved out of Millbrook parish in 1835/6. The church is situated on the north-east side of St. James' Road, at the south-east corner of Bellemoor Road. Built in 1836, it was designed by local architect William Hinves (later the senior of the Hinves and Bedborough architectural partnership) in a modern ecclesiastical gothic style. The land for the church was provided by Nathaniel Jeffereys, a local landowner who lived at Hollybrook House and for whom Hinves had recently worked. The church contained 600 sittings, half of which were free. It has undergone several improvements since 1836: the balconies were added by Hinves in 1839-1840, in response to the continuing influx of new residents into Shirley Common; a new chancel was added in 1881; the clock was provided in about 1875. The church is Grade II listed.
St James's Church, Shirley
A modern photograph of the church.
St James's Church, Shirley×
St James's Church, Shirley
A coloured postcard of St James Church, c.1905
St James's Church, Shirley×
Newspaper clippings:
Shirley church celebrates 150 years - (SDE 06/06/1986)
Further reading:
Buildings of England: Hampshire and the I.O.W., by Nikolaus Pevsner and David Lloyd, p568. (H/i)
History of Southampton, by Rev. J. S. Davies, p351. (HS/h)
Shirley 1836-1986, by Adrian Rance. (HS/h)
Shirley from Domesday to D-Day, by John Guilmant and Hilary Kavanagh, p11-12, 21-22, 48. (HS/h.SHI)
‘William Hinves and Alfred Bedborough: architects in nineteenth-century Southampton’, by Richard Preston in Southampton Local History Forum Journal, no. 17, Autumn 2010, p3-31. (HS/h)
Navigation
Browse A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y-Z
Get Involved
If you wish to
- suggest additional information for this entry
- suggest amendments to this entry
- offer your own research
- make a comment
then fill in the form on the Contact page.