St Philip and St Jacob refers to itself as the
city's 'oldest place of
Christian worship'. The church began as a small priory around
AD 900. It was later rebuilt by
Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, who also built the nearby priory of
St James'. All that remains of the original church is the
font, although parts of the
chancel and tower date from at least the 13th Century. The building was extended during the
Middle Ages to include the present-day
nave, the pillars of which are actually
Victorian additions, possibly by William Armstrong. The tower contains eight bells dating from 1738 and made by William Bilbie of the
Bilbie family. Around 1860 new plans were submitted by
John Bindon,
Richard Shackleton Pope and
Thomas Shackleton Pope and accepted for the rebuilding of the church. An extension was also added to the south-east corner of the church during the 1980s, comprising meeting rooms, a kitchen and other facilities. The building is an
English Heritage Grade II* listed structure.
Church monuments The church once retained the upper half of a late-medieval recumbent knightly effigy, dating from about 1470–75, which was the surviving fragment of a once complete monument described as having been among the largest monumental effigies in England. The effigy was recorded in the 19th century as being long identified in local tradition as representing “Robert, son of William the Conqueror", although the same account observes that the armour was of a period about 200 years later, and therefore anachronistic to that identification. The effigy was presumably lost or destroyed sometime after it was last recorded in 1982. ==Archives==