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We offer daily services and a creative programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
We are delighted to announce that from 6 Jan until early Apr 2025, work will take place to reinstate the church’s South Door onto Jermyn Street, part of Sir Christopher Wren’s original design.
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion.
We host a year-round creative programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word.
We offer hospitality to people going through homelessness and speak out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
St James’s strives to advocate for earth justice and to develop deeper connections with nature.
We aspire to be a home where everyone can belong. We’re known locally and globally for our unique history and beauty, as well as faith in action, creativity and the arts, and a commitment to social and environmental justice.
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
The work of St James’s, it costs us £5,000 per day to enable us to keep our doors open to all who need us.
New walkways, a restored courtyard and re-landscaped gardens will provide fully accessible, beautiful spaces for everyone to enjoy as well as improving our environmental performance.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
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Church Warden, Deborah Colvin, shares her experience of planting hedgerows as part of our Earth Justice project.
Hope is impelled by putting your hands in the ground…. reclaiming the honour of reciprocity… which entails faith in our neighbours.
These words from a talk by Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and Potowotami elder, feel so rich. Hope, earth, and neighbour-relationship all bound up together. And they become richer when you realize she absolutely includes the more-than-human world among our neighbours. What might a relationship of faith, honour and reciprocity with our plant neighbours look like?
At the start of Advent, ten of us from St James’s spent a weekend planting 300m of new hedgerow on the Chettle Estate in Dorset, alongside a group of staff and supporters from St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. A hedgerow is basically a line of shrubs and trees so dense that it can serve as a barrier. They have a very long history in the UK – you can still see examples from neolithic times in Norfolk and elsewhere. Under the Enclosure Acts they were planted to privatise previously common land. After the second world war they were removed to allow for large scale, intensive farming. 52% were lost in around 50 years with catastrophic consequences for biodiversity, (see here for more). These days many landowners take a wider perspective, and planting of new hedges, or rewilding of old ones, is underway again.
‘The weekend was a great experience. It offered a real chance to connect with others and nature. To think about our role and responsibilities as stewards of God’s creation, and also feel like we had contributed to the natural world in a properly constructive, practical way.’ Jen
St Ethelburga’s Co-director Tarot Couzyn says: ‘At this time of ecological unravelling, I am interested in the meeting point of large-scale collective action with individual values and transformation’. And so the weekend was full of opportunities for transformation and relationship-building – sharing stories, readings and games round the open fire in the evenings; greeting the dawn outdoors on frosty grass; speaking and hearing our truths over lunch-time soup (outdoors again); night-walking in silence without artificial light; hands-on learning about the medicinal and nutritional benefits of hedgerows (did you know…. during the second world war wild rosehips, which contain many times more vitamin C than oranges, were harvested by the ton, mostly by children). And of course, being in faithful reciprocity with our neighbours the plants themselves.
‘Incredible weekend with a shared sense of purpose, beautifully organized by our (now friends) from St Ethelberga’s. Loved the moonlit walk, Jo’s intro to the multiple benefits of foraged food, and the many and varied conversations that took place throughout.’ Janie
‘It was a wonderful experience working side by side with others from SJP and St. E’s who care about the land, our relationship with the land and each other. We learned how to plant hedgerows and had fun doing it with folks we knew and got to know. Loved the mix of ages and backgrounds who participated and look forward to continuing to connect and learn from those we met at Chettle.’ ???? Rebecca
Naming is important for faithful reciprocity. Say their names: rowan, dog-rose, spindle, field-maple, hazel, elder, hawthorn. And also listen for their many other names denoting their place in the world, how they are known to the fungal networks connecting them to soil and each other, to the insect and microbial and worm-filled biome for which they offer structure, to sheltering wrens and sparrows (and many more), to navigating bats, over-arching raptors, small mammals and reptiles making homes. We methodically measured out, dug holes, planted and protected ‘our’ trees – and they, faithfully, will bring a universe into being.
‘Yes, working outside in the earth with living plants giving hope for the future, with others who also care about nature sharing stories food, games and the campfire – PERFECT praise the Lord!’ Dee
‘A weekend of hope and laughter! Wonderful to be outside and be connected to the land. A real sense of achievement – I’ll never look at a hedgerow in the same way again!’ Zoe
‘Great!’ ???????????????? Sarah
Lifelines is a project for the long haul. This winter, groups from many religious and social justice communities will be out and about across the country, planting hedgerows, and building relationship. Next winter, like the underground mycelial networks supporting the hedge plants, the project will expand and develop. To find out more or join in, email ecochurch@sjp.org.uk or become a hedge-funder here!