Dursley lies on the south side of a deep valley, cut into the Cotswold escarpment by the fast flowing river Ewelme. The town probably stems from about the 12th century when Roger de Berkeley founded a castle here. No trace of the castle exists but it was probably somewhere in the North West of the town.

The market house, which sadly seems to do duty as a roundabout in the town centre, is of a familiar design. We have seen the like in many places including the nearby Tetbury. There are a few great examples of ancient architecture dotted around the market which give you a hint of what the original square used to look like. But the church of St James is a real eye opener. It is full of treasures and worth a visit from anyone even remotely interested in the history of ecclesiastical architecture. It has a chequered and dramatic past.

The church was founded along with the castle in the mid 12th century, on the 7th of January 1699, the spire and tower collapsed, crashing down on the heads of the bell ringers hard at work inside. Collapsing spires and towers are not unusual in these ancient buildings, partly because the builders were pushing the boundaries of their expertise to the limit, but recorded deaths from these collapses are rare.
The tower was rebuilt in 1707 to 1709 to the design of Thomas Sumption of Colerne in Wiltshire, one of the last master masons to carry on with medieval traditions largely unaffected by either renaissance or Gothic Revivalist influences. It’s design, Pevsner tells us, was based on that of the 15th century tower at Colerne with the addition of openwork battlements and pinnacles in the style of the Gloucester coronet.
Further restoration took place in the 1860s by T G Jackson.