St James' Church, Whitehaven

The church was built in 1752–53 at a cost of £3,400 (equivalent to £|r=-4}}}} in ). However the authors of Buildings of England series note that no other building designed by Spedding is known, and it has been suggested that the architect was Christopher Myers, who later designed churches in Ireland. The land for the church was given by Sir James. In 1871 the apse was restored, blocking the east Venetian window, and introducing top lighting. The interior of the church was reordered in 1886 by C. J. Ferguson, which including moving the altar and the organ. In 1921 the southeast of the church was converted into a war memorial chapel, and the northeast into a baptistry. The interior of the…

Writing in 1967, the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner stated that this was "the finest Georgian church interior in the county", and the later authors of the Buildings of England series describe the interior as "serenely beautiful". There is a ring of twelve bells. The oldest of these were cast in 1586 and 1624 by Henry Oldfield I and George Oldfield I respectively. The others were all made by John Taylor and Company in 1872 (1), 1908 (4), 1978 (3), and 1998 (2).