St James' Church, Cooling, Kent

Address:
Main Road, Rochester, Kent, ME3 8DG
How to find us | Access information
Opening times:
Open daily 10am to 4pm. For enquiries about this church, please contact Nick Watts - [email protected]
  • The church of St James dates mainly from the late 1200s and early 1300s, although there may well have been a Saxon church on this site. 
  • The tiny vestry at St James' Church is lined from floor to ceiling with thousands of cockle shells, and is perhaps unique in an English church.
  • The 13th century font and 14th or 15th century medieval door, still swinging on its ancient hinges in a mysterious blocked doorway.
  • Pips Graves, the graves of 13 children who died of marsh fever, were described in the opening section of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.
  • The 13th century font - one of the oldest remaining features of the church - consists of a square ragstone bowl resting upon a central circular stem and four corner shafts.
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The inspiration for a dramatic Dickens' tale

Charles Dickens used the churchyard of St James as his inspiration in the opening chapter of Great Expectations, where the hero Pip meets Magwitch the convict. The site - on the Hoo Peninsula with marshes stretching north to the Thames estuary, is dramatically desolate and bleak in winter, recalling the sinister opening scene in David Lean's 1946 film of the book. Here, you can find what have become known as 'Pip's Graves' - the forlorn gravestones of 13 babies that Dickens describes as "little stone lozenges each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their [parents'] graves".

Inside, the church is light and spacious. There is a 500-year-old timber door that still swings on its ancient hinges - even though it now leads to a blocked north doorway! Another quirky feature is the nineteenth-century vestry - its walls are lined from top to bottom with thousands of cockle shells - the emblem of St James. The monuments in the church walls and floor are a fascinating record of those who once lived here.

They include a slab with a brass effigy of Feyth Brook, who died in 1508 and was the wife of Lord Cobham, of nearby Cooling Castle. Dickens fans should also visit St Mary's in Higham, the village where the novelist ended his days while writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

To donate by text, please text 'COO' to 70970 to donate £5 and to 70191 to donate £10. Thank you.

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