St James Church Isle Of Grain Rochester Kent England UK Royalty-Free Stock Photography

A small and remote church at the end of the Hoo Peninsula. The usual two-cell Norman church was extended and partially rebuilt in the late twelfth century by the addition of north and south aisles the introduction of reredos niches for the nave altars and new windows in the chancel. The aisles were demolished in the early nineteenth century but their blocked arcades are still clearly visible. The reredos niches are both painted with thirteenth-century five-petalled flowers whilst the southern one also shows the figure of a bearded bishop. There are the remains of two Norman windows in the nave and a group of thirteenth-century coffin lids. Despite its medieval size the church did not possess a tower until the present one was built in 1905