Anyone driving into Cardiff city centre along Newport Road might have noticed a substantial church standing silently on the street next to multiple blocks of apartments, the Mercure hotel and opposite the site of the former Royal Infirmary Hospital.
Called St James The Great Church, it was built between 1891 and 1894 and designed by E.M. Bruce Vaughan, who lived in the parish and in 1906 donated the stained glass in the east window in memory of his sister. The magnificent building is said to have replaced an earlier iron church.
The church opened on June 15,1894 but in 1925 restoration work was required after a fire, and additions at this time included tiling and marble steps to the chancel, the altar and organ, and the War Memorial chancel screen.
