CHIPPING Campden has been named as having one of the 50 best medieval church towers or spires in England.

The tower of St James’s Church features in a new book by architect Julian Flannery, which is the result of five years of original research

Mr Flannery visited the church in 2013, when he paid tribute in the church magazine to “unquestionably the most beautiful parish tower in Gloucestershire”.

In the book, he compliments the church tower for its “splendidly self-confident design”, an “exquisitely beautiful” crown or top, and “exemplary workmanship”. He precisely measured the tower’s height at 191 feet and four inches, or just over 58 metres.

St James's, the only church in Gloucestershire to appear in the book, ranks at 33rd on the list, where number 50 is the best, a spot occupied by the 287-foot (87 metre) spire at Louth in Lincolnshire.

The volume, entitled Fifty English Steeples: The Finest Medieval Parish Church Towers and Spires in England, is published by Thames and Hudson at £50.

St James’s gets two of the book's 75 full-page photographs and 11 of its 175 architectural drawings.

The publishers describe the book as ranging “from renowned Saxon churches. . . to those of almost cathedral-like proportions, such as Salle in Norfolk or Chipping Campden in the heart of the Cotswolds”.

After working for other architectural practices, Mr Flannery founded his own, Flannery and de la Pole, at Solihull in 2004. His lifelong passion has been the detailed study of historic buildings.