A sensitive reordering that opened the church up for its community, followed by the fabric repairs and ongoing inspection that keep the building sound.

Following a competitive tender, Chapter was appointed to reorder St James's: a kitchenette, a meeting room, an improved welcome area, flexible worship space for larger gatherings, and better storage. The guiding principle was that a working church has to be allowed to evolve to stay relevant, so every intervention was designed to be reversible, coherent and low-impact, and the works were phased so the church could keep operating throughout.

When the congregation decided to remove the pews for full flexibility, we made sure the decision was tested rather than assumed, and mitigated the loss of historic fabric by reusing the pew timber to build the new servery. Constructed with the joiner on site, it visibly carries the language of the old joinery, keeping details that record the pews' history. The same chamfered pew-end detail was carried through the meeting room and other new joinery to tie the work together. The meeting room itself was formed by glazing between the columns of two north aisle bays, holding the light and volume of the nave rather than closing it off.

Storage was a persistent problem, with furniture and equipment accumulating across the interior. Rather than intrude further into the worship space, we designed discreet storage into the baptistry, an underused space that had itself become a store, so that clutter was resolved and the space could regain its calm and focus.

Part-way through the internal works, localised ceiling damage revealed widespread decay in the north aisle roof. Opening up showed the copper had been re-covered decades earlier over a non-breathable layer, and condensation, more than leaks alone, had quietly rotted the timber below. We advised against short-term patching, set out the options clearly for the church, and re-roofed the north aisle in traditional copper with a properly ventilated build-up, resolving the cause rather than the symptom. Insulation was explored at the same time, but once the limited benefit and the risk to historic fabric were clear we advised against it: in an old building, doing less is sometimes the more responsible choice.

Appointed as Inspecting Architect, we then carried out the Quinquennial Inspection and used it to look at the whole building. A drone survey checked the tower stonework and the high-level spire gutter safely and without scaffolding, and a focused programme of repointing, brick repair and leadwork repairs followed. Complex decisions throughout were explained to the PCC with drawings, visuals and plain language, so the church could make confident, informed choices. Seeing the fabric as one connected system, where roof, decoration, heating and inspection all bear on one another, is what has kept the church's care coherent.