Name: St. James the Less
Denomination: Anglican
Address: Vauxhall Bridge Road. SW1V 2PT
Telephone: 020 7630 6282
Fax: 020 7976 5408
Web Site: http://www.sjtl.org/
Email: Click Here
Please visit the website for times of services and details of other events.
St. James the Less, Westminster is a charismatic evangelical, Anglican church in the heart of Pimlico.
Our vision is to be a place of welcome for everyone which seeks to see lives and communities transformed with Christ at the centre of everything
We are committed to growing whole-life radical disciples of Christ; rooted in God’s word, and living in the power of the Spirit. Our aim is to see people transformed by leading them into wholeness under God, helping them to grow in holiness and presenting them mature in Christ so that they become the people God created them to be. Because we have experienced the grace of God, we seek to build a church without walls, where everyone is accepted and welcomed. As Jesus prayed ‘Your kingdom come’, we seek physical and spiritual regeneration, identifying and responding to the needs of the communities to which we belong with God’s hope and healing.
History
St James the Less in south Westminster was opened in 1861 and described in the Illustrated London News of that month as being, “like a lily arising from amidst the weeds of the surrounding slums”. George Edmund Street, one of the leading architects of the day, had been commissioned by the three daughters of a former bishop of Gloucester and Bristol to build a church as a memorial to their father. His efforts, which cost £6,500, are now judged to be a superb example of arts and crafts architecture and has been listed Grade I.
Architecture
Geoffrey Fletcher in his book, The London Nobody Knows, describes the building thus: “entering St James the Less is like walking into a Victorian chroma-lithograph. The interior is a profusion of gilding, brick, tile and marble. Almost every surface is covered or decorated and must be savoured slowly. The coloured decoration has become more harmonious with the passage of time. Here there is a restless notching of edges, the dazzling distribution of stripes, the multiplicity of patterned forms and exuberance of sculptured details. It is all so clever, so evidently the invention of a man who enjoyed his work”.
The font is an extraordinary construction loaned in its time to the Second Great Exhibition of 1861. The roof, displaying the stem of Jesse, is a masterful and accurate reflection of the Biblical record, and the Clayton and Bell glass has been described as some of the finest of its kind. The church has been pastored by several distinguished clergyman, Canon Blackley the well-known philanthropist, Canon Thorndike, Dame Sybil’s father; and Father Pollard in whose employ there could be found the last of the great clerical housekeepers! There has been a tradition amongst incumbents of St James the Less of dying in post – a tradition that has not been in evidence latterly.
Doctrine and Style of Worship
Although designed as a great Tractarian centre, reflecting in south Westminster the ministry of All Saints, Margaret Street to the north, and despite being a precursor of Halifax’s vision for Bourne Street, it has in recent years embraced a slightly different tradition. A mixture of traditional and modern worship blended seamlessly together has recently been an aim of the liturgical life of this church.
Social Outreach
The congregation of St James has always had a concern for those on the margins of our society, expressing this both by its hospitality to the homeless and its Community Task Force, which reaches out to those within the Parish who need practical help and friendship. It has enjoyed as a church the insight and support of The Passage in its attempt to be effective in this ministry.
Special Features
St James is a church committed to expressing its primary evangelism through the Alpha course, seeking to train the congregation to reflect theologically on the issues of the day; has written and piloted a marriage preparation course; and seeks to be a community which lives out our vision to live as those who belong to the Body of Christ, for God, with each other and to all people.
How to Find Us
The building is well served by motorbus routes and is equidistant between Pimlico and Victoria underground stations. The building is open Monday – Friday between 12pm and 3pm for Visitors and the Administrator and Verger and willing for it to be opened other times, by arrangement. The congregation, although predominately younger and somewhat transient, values the historic heritage and Anglican tradition so typified by this church building.