Our new kitchen, signed off in December 2020 is now fully up and running and used regularly to provide tea and coffee after church services. Visitors to our church are welcome to help themselves to refreshments and tea and coffee are left out on a tray for this purpose.Our next project will be to build a cloakroom with a toilet on the side of the church building. It will be built sympathetically to blend in with the existing building and will therefore be expensive. We are in possession of a faculty and have raised approximately half of the money needed, but are seeking grants and donations to raise the remaining £30 000.
Do you have family connections with Cradley? Are you thinking of paying us a visit as part of your research? On our website we now have a plan of the inside of the church and a map of the churchyard, together with a searchable index which will enable you to find gravestones and other memorials . Our thanks go to all National Lottery players whose support has made this possible.
Run by the National Churches Trust in partnership with The Pilgrim Trust, these new awards reward local people for excellence in planning the maintenance of a church or chapel. Good maintenance practice, including annual maintenance plans, regular inspections and small preventative repairs stop many minor problems from escalating into large, expensive repairs that can threaten the future of a building. At St James we have developed a bespoke computer database for planning and monitoring our maintenance.Georgina Nayler, Director of the Pilgrim Trust says“I am very impressed by the commitment and professionalism of this small church congregation. They have shown real initiative and implemented what they have learnt. The use of photography is a really easy, yet really useful tool in monitoring the condition of the building.”
