AB KETTLEBY : CHURCH OF ST JAMES

Church Post Code LE14 3HT

Opened by arrangement

It was a Sunday afternoon, early August 2026; the long hot record breaking summer. We were between fourth and fifth heatwaves; the heat having dropped for a few days at the time of this visit but due to reappear with a vengeance by the middle of the following week.

It had been a good Leicestershire mini churchcrawl; which started off by attending a communion service at Thorpe Arnold to the north east outskirts of Melton Mowbray. We them headed south, along the new ‘Pork Pie Way’ to a similar service at Burton Lazars to the south of Melton. We then headed off to the Broughton’s Nether and Upper, with the latter just across the border in to Nottinghamshire. By early afternoon we had arrived at the church of St James at Ad Kettleby.

The village here can be found some three miles to the north of Melton Mowbray on the A606 which connects Melton to Nottingham. Fond memories of the long lost and much missed number 12 bus service run by Kimes and then Centre Bus, which went from Peterborough to Nottingham, with Ab Kettleby being on that route. That route is now no more; gone the same way as many other routes, as well as countless village schools, shops and my hair line!

This was my third visit to this church; having originally visited here back in April 2014, on what turned out to be an ill advised trip out, ignoring a severe weather warning for rain; spending a good amount of time in the Sugar Loaf public house in the village as the rain lashed down; finally emerging after a fine steak and ale pie to find flood water sweeping downhill through the village. A return visit at the time of the lifting of covid restrictions in 2020 was primarily concerned with the church grounds and the Belvoir Angels therein.

The church here is normally closed out of service times but was open on the day by arrangement, for which I was very grateful. The civil parish itself recorded a population of 504 at the time of the census of 2021, with these figure including that of the neighbouring hamlets of Wartnaby to the west and Holwell off to the north east.

There is some real history here with evidence of a Roman villa; a mosaic being unearthed in the church grounds. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086 with a priest but no church being recorded at that time. It is worth noting that this doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a physical church here; the survey was mainly a register for the purposes of taxation and churches were sometimes left out of the Domesday records as being not applicable on that basis.

The church of St James is set back from the main road to the south of the village; isolated a little with trees surrounding on all sides. Parking up, there was a short walk before entering the church grounds to the north east. The structure that we see today dates back to the 13th century and consists of west tower with spire, nave with north and south aisles and clerestories, south porch and chancel.

The core of the medieval structure; west tower, nave with south aisle, south porch and chancel all date from the 13th to 14th centuries. Walls were raised and clerestory windows were added to let in more light at a later date; likely 15th century.

There were periods of Victorian restoration here. In 1852 to 1853 work was undertaken to repair structural damage and a new north aisle was built. At the same time the church had new seating installed, with this work being completed in a second phase a few years later.

The church has had a difficult recent history. The church here sits on a site of a former Roman villa and this, along with a ditch which runs underneath the church, had caused subsidence, falling masonry and leaks, to the extent that the church was closed from 2006 until 2013 at which point the structural issues were sorted out at a cost of more than £250,000.

When Thomas North saw his study of the church bells in Leicestershire published in 1876 there were three bells in the ring here, with details as follows. The first of the ring was a recasting of a previous bell cast by George I Oldfield of Nottingham in 1653; being inscribed ‘God Save His Chvrch’. The second was cast by the Oldfield foundry of Leicester in the very late 1500’s. The third was cast in Nottingham by Thomas Hedderly in 1765; with this having the name of the church warden of the day Thomas Cross inscribed on to it.

The recent history of the bells is interesting. The wooden bell frame was rotten and was replaced in 1950, with a new bell frame installed which was designed to hold a ring of six. Money ran out and this project was not completed at that time. The problems with the leaks and structural damage in the spire mentioned earlier saw this ‘new’ bell frame rotted in places with the bells being unable to be rung as a result.

They were rung again for the first time in 2013 and the ring of six was finally completed in 2015 with two bells added by Taylor of Loughborough along with one further bell added which is dated 1929 and came from a church in Cornwall.

Taking a look at the exterior, the church here is not the easiest to photograph due to the surrounding trees and there was a frustrating few minutes pressed back against the church walls trying to get everything in. The west tower is of three stages, buttressed and battlemented. An octagonal broch spire rises up; which has no lucarne windows but has three tiers of regularly spaced quatrefoil designs cut in to the spire looking out to the four main compass points; with these decreasing in size as they progress upwards.

The outline of the pre clerestory roofline can be seen against the east wall of the tower. The south porch is medieval and is not used anymore; which probably means that the village itself might have relocated over the centuries.

The clerestory takes the form of three two light windows; a selection of lichen encrusted, weathered stone heads on the label stops of windows to the south look out across the church grounds. The east window is of four lights. Throughout the exterior the recent work of the restorers can be seen; crisp in nature against the medieval!

These last three photographs were taken on the April 2014 visit; not too long before the rain started. I have added these and in particular the exterior shot of the church from the south east, to show the difference between that and a church grounds in drought conditions.