The Victorian gothic building was erected between 1876 and 1881 by Browne and Gill of Bath.

The church was originally a chapel of ease connected to the vicarage at Kilmersdon, near Radstock.

At the west end of the aisles in the Church of St James two memorial tablets can be seen.

These are dedicated to John Billingsley, his wife Mary, and their family.

[4] The writer of the 1794 Survey of Somerset, Billingsley was a leading agriculturalist who was one of the founders of the Bath and West Society, known today as the Royal Bath and West of England Society.