Default Image Place of Worship has been
Demolished.
Image by courtesy of
openclipart.org

St James's Church (Demolished),
Walton Cardiff, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Church did NOT have a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded before 1249, but we understand it was closed in 1975.

According to the Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 8: Cleeve, Deerhurst and Tibblestone, and the lower divisions of Tewkesbury and Westminster (1968), pp.236-242 (Walton Cardiff), there was a chapel of Walton Cardiff by 1249. The manor acquired the name of Walton Cardiff as it was owned by several generations of Cardiff, the earliest reference being William de Cardiff in 1166. In the 14th and 15th centuries, land was also held by the Basset families, giving rise to the name Walton Basset. "When the abbey and Thomas and Elizabeth Basset partitioned the manor in 1419, it was agreed that the chapel, which lay in the Bassets' part of the manor-house precinct on the south side of the road, should be in common".

Kelly's Directory of 1923 describes Walton Cardiff as a village and parish, 1 mile south-east-by-east from Tewkesbury station on the Ashchurch branch of the Midland railway. The Thirle brook, a feeder of the river Swilgate, flows through the parish. The church of St James, rebuilt in 1869, is "a small edifice of stone in the Franco-Norman style, from designs by Mr. John Middleton, and consists of chancel, nave and a bell-cote containing one bell". In 1908 an oak reredos and pulpit, carved by Miss Steward, of Northway, were placed in the church. There is a small stained window, and there are 75 sittings.

The registers of baptisms date from 1677, and of marriages from 1697. No burials have taken place here, but the parishioners have the right of burial in the neighbouring parishes of Ashchurch and Tewkesbury. The living in 1923 was a perpetual curacy, in the gift of the Bishop of Gloucester, and had been held since 1914 by the Rev. Ernest Frederick Smith M.A. of Lincoln College, Oxford, who was also rural dean and vicar of Tewkesbury.

Kelly also mentions that there was a fine mineral spring at the Manor House, considered equal to the waters at Cheltenham.

The VCH account refers to the early Church being subject to flooding, and by 1863 it was so dilapidated that the roof and some of the walls collapsed. This resulted in the rebuilding referred to by Kelly. Sadly however, since then, a Church Commissioners Report on Pastoral and Closed Churches in Gloucester Diocese, on the Church of England website records that it was disposed of on 25th June 1975 for demolition, and Maps now indicate its site has been reclaimed as farming land.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church was located at OS grid reference SO9068432222. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St James's Church (Demolished), Walton Cardiff shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Walton Cardiff shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Walton Cardiff, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 8: Cleeve, Deerhurst and Tibblestone, and the lower divisions of Tewkesbury and Westminster (null) (verified 2018-11-06)
• The Church Commissioners Report on Pastoral and Closed Churches, found on the Church of England (null) (verified 2018-10-04)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.