St James' Church, Cardington

The body of the church is constructed in sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings and has tiled roofs. The tower is rendered in cement and limewashed, and the porch is timber. The plan consists of a nave with a south porch, a chancel, and a west tower. The tower is in three stages with a battlemented parapet, and surmounted by a pyramidal cap with a weathervane. In the bottom stage is a lancet window on the west side. The middle stage contains paired lancets under arches, that on the south side being blocked by a clock face. The bell openings are louvred in pairs under arches.[2] The nave contains Norman windows and doorways, some of which are blocked. The south doorway contains a door dated 1648. In the chancel are lancet windows and two-light windows containing Y-tracery.[5] The east window consists of three stepped lancets under one arch.[2]

In the chancel is a 13th-century double piscina, and a square aumbry.[2] The reredos stretches the full width of the church, and contains encaustic tiles depicting the apostles. The pulpit is in Jacobean style, and contains crude carvings of mermen.[2][5] The stone font dates from 1868.[2] The stained glass in the east window dating from 1914, a memorial to Violet Christie (died 1913) and her widower Captain Stephen Christy (killed in World War I 1914),[6] is by Powells, and in the nave is a window with stained glass of 1955 designed by Edward Payne. The oldest monument is that of Chief Justice William Leighton who died in 1607.[5] The two-manual pipe organ was built in about 1985 by George Sixsmith, using "much second-hand pipework".[7] There is a ring of eight bells. The oldest of these was cast in 1626 by William and Thomas Clibury, and the next oldest by Abel Rudhall in 1752. Two bells were cast in 1887 by James Barwell, and the other four by John Taylor and Company, two in 1990 and two in 2005.[8]