St James Church on Oxford Road. What a spectacle this huge building must have made when it appeared on the south side of the Common in 1859. At that time the Common was a flat, treeless, wild heath. Two sisters, Louisa and Anna Maria Reid, who lived at Bulstrode, had the church built as a memorial to their brother, Major George Alexander Reid who had been MP for Windsor. The church was designed by Sir William Tite, architect of the Royal Exchange in London and several railway stations. The building's style, a mixture of Byzantine and Italian, is surely unique for a church built in the High Victorian period when Gothic architecture was 'de rigueur'. Originally a chapel of ease for Fulmer church, and built on land given by the Duke of Somerset, St. James only became a parish church in 1861 on the creation of Gerrards Cross parish. In 1984 the parishes of St James, Fulmer and St James, Gerrards Cross were united, but with two parish churches. Today the church is flourishing and a modern, multifunctional building, St. James Centre, was opened in 2006 by former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. The church is listed Grade II*.
Author: A Howlett-Bolton