St James Church, Barbados

St. James Parish Church
St. James Parish Church, The Eastern Side
Country	Barbados
Denomination	Anglican
Website	[1]
Administration
Parish	St. James
Diocese	Diocese of Barbados
Province	Church in the Province of the West Indies
Clergy
Bishop(s)	The Rt Rev John Holder
Rector	Rev Beverly Sealy-Knight
Priest(s)	The Rt Rev Rufus Brome (ret)
Laity
Organist(s)	Phillip Forde

St. James Parish Church, is located in Holetown, St. James, Barbados. It stands on one of the oldest parcels of consecrated land on the island, often known in Barbados as "God's acre". Part of the Diocese of Barbados in the Church in the Province of the West Indies, St. James Parish Church is just north of Holetown, beside Folkstone Park.

Daily tours are conducted to share the church's rich history. There are many beautiful monuments, and items of historical value, some dating back to the 1600s. Two services are held every Sunday: a spoken Eucharist at 7:15 am and a sung Eucharist at 9 am. On months with a fifth Sunday, there is one service at 8 am. There are also morning matins on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 am.

As well as being a heavily visited tour spot, St. James is also a very popular choice for conducting weddings.

The first settlers landed on the island on February 17, 1627 at Holetown not far from the site where the church was eventually built. The settlement there expanded rapidly and it became necessary to erect a place of worship. In 1628 the settlers constructed a wooden building on this site. St. James Parish Church was one of the original six parishes later created under the administration of Sir William Tufton, the sixth Governor of Barbados.

After a hurricane on August 31, 1675 which devastated most of the island, a stone structure replaced the former wooden building in the early 1690s. This stone structure was made from coral and limestone from which this non-volcanic island is made. Another violent hurricane struck in 1780 and according to Robert Hermann Schomburgk's History of Barbados only two churches and one chapel remained; St. Andrew, St. Peter and All Saints. There is no specific record of what happened to St. James in the storms of 1675 and 1780 but after the hurricane of 1831 St. James was not among the churches listed as having been destroyed. Schomburgk states that in 1846 at the time of his writing this book, the building was 54' X 40' in size with a seating capacity of 550 and a congregation of approximately '360 souls'.

After nearly 200 years the walls of the original stone building began to decay and were partly demolished and replaced by a larger, more substantial structure in 1874.

In 1874, the nave roof was raised on new pillars and arches. The enlarged building was consecrated by Bishop Mitchinson on Easter Tuesday, 1875. Except for the sanctuary and north porch, added in 1900s, this is substantially the building still in use today.