Porchester St James

Features and Fittings

Main Altar

This is in oak with five panels symbolising the five wounds of Christ. The centre panel is of ‘Our Lord reigning in glory from the cross.’ This is made of veneers of different coloured inlaid woods. The background is purple heart, signifying darkness and gloom. The cross is in zebrano, a stripy wood with vertical grain, and it is embedded in a mound which is built up of alternate layers of walnut, sycamore and pedauk, a blood-red wood from Malaya. The Saviour’s figure is in tulip wood, cream but with pinkish colouring in it. The hair and beard are done in walnut, the wounds in pedauk, the halo in sycamore with rays of light radiating from it. The altar dates from the enlargement in 1956.

Side Altar

A Victorian oak altar stand is the side aisle.

The 1956 ‘bracket’ font The free-standing oak font

Fonts

Dating from 1956 is an unusual ‘Bracket’ Font which can be swung out from a brick alcove, on an ornamental wrought iron arm, coloured in Venetian red and picked out with gold. The font is a bowl made of walnut and lined with copper. It is now rarely used.

There is also a free-standing oak font with lid and copper bowl, dating from 1981 and given in memory of JP Stone, verger.

Lecterns

There is a double-sided lectern of light oak, dating from 1956.

There is also a smaller portable, adjustable lectern. This is metal with an oak rest and dates from 1983.

Table

There is a vestry table made from good oak salvaged from the tower roof of St Mary’s Nottingham and made from two beams originally placed there in 1468. They were removed during the restoration of the tower in 1934 and made into a table which was presented to St James’ Porchester on 14th February 1936.

Incumbents Board

A list of the incumbents. The board was originally from Southwell Minster Chapter House and it is carved with the word ‘Cancellarius’.