St James South Elmham: An Introduction

St James South Elmham, often St James or sometimes St James SE, sits out on a limb, an ancient and deeply rural village. It is set away from the other Saints parishes with houses ancient and modern tucked in among the trees. The climb up to it is gentle and steady but it is the highest parish above sea level in East Suffolk. Agriculture is at the core of village life and still comes right to its centre. Nowadays the very high-speed broadband supports the farming and many other activities, services and businesses besides.

The South Elmham parishes, together with nearby Flixton and Homersfield, made up the deanery and township given to the Bishops of Dunwich who evangelised this part of Suffolk; subsequent Bishops of East Anglia held all the South Elmham deanery manors. An area known as St James’ Park in the south of the parish was the deer park which was still used by the Bishops of Norwich in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Anglo-Saxon parts of St James church are evidence of much earlier village roots.

The heraldic image at the top right of the screen shows a stone shield crossed by two bars and with three scallop shells. This is set into the wall inside the church close to the altar and again highlights the link to St James. The patterns in the stone represent colours of a painted version: the ‘beaded’ background would be gold, the lines in the bars indicate blue. The shells would be white.

Its life and history are reflected in St James South Elmham, unusually, having two different village signs. The one shown on the right above, and at the east end of the village, shows a large scallop shell, the emblem of St James, at the top of a tall wooden post with the village name set in the brick base. The second sign shown on the left above, and at the west end of the village, frames village life surmounted by three scallop shells. The cow and pig give an indication of the farming livestock and dairy farms, with the tractor at the bottom representing arable farming. The badminton racquet and theatre mask relate to the village hall and recreation ground. In the centre is the church and the old school behind a fence; the fence represents the local legend of the cuckoo. The saw and hammer represent all the trades in the parish, past and present.

The project for the creation and installation of these two signs is described in more depth here.