St James the Greater Church

St. James the Greater was designed by George Edmund Street, the leading practitioner of the Victorian Gothic revival. Though mainly a church architect, he is perhaps best known as the designer of the Royal Courts of Justice, in the Strand in London. The church was built in 1851-3 and is located at the centre of the village of Eastbury, which has some 265 residents. Flint from the local Downs is used for the walls. Most windows are stained glass, but the most notable window is engraved plain glass by Laurence Whistler, 1971, in memory of Edward Thomas, the poet, well known for his war poetry and who was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917. The design shows a symbolic landscape with lines from Thomas's poems floating across the scene.