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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
Directions on Google Maps
Sunday 9 June 4.30pm
Cloistered tells the story of the author’s twelve years as a nun in a traditional monastic community in rural Northumberland. It is a multi-layered account that shows both the beauty and the risks of life in an ancient and revered institution.
Free event
All are welcome
An exploration of the limits of trust, Cloistered shows us how far youthful idealism can take us along the road of self-surrender, and how much harm is done when hierarchical flaws go unacknowledged. Catherine’s honest account of her time in the monastery – and flight from it – is both a love song to a lost community and an exploration of what is most compelling, yet most potentially destructive when closed human groups become laws unto themselves.
Catherine Coldstream was born into a bohemian family in London, and grew up loving books, words, and music. She spent her teens writing over-ambitious experimental music that rarely got performed. After the shock of her father’s death, she converted to Roman Catholicism in her 20s, and went on to spend twelve years in a Carmelite monastery where she lived the life of a dedicated contemplative nun. Since leaving her community she has studied at the Universities of Oxford, East Anglia, and London, gained a PhD, and taught theology and philosophy in schools. The effects of her years as a nun have never left her and continue to inspire and inform her writing.
Order Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream