The team was formed in September 2005 from the then St Matthews (Salford Priors) team, because of a conversation with our vicar at the tower bell A.G.M. asking us if we would like to "transfer" to our own village Church, most of the then current team were from Harvington anyway, plus a few members from around the area, we jumped at the chance because it was something we had wanted to do for long time.

Because of the change it meant that we had to purchase a new team uniform, which the Church very kindly purchasd for us, but more importantly we required a new set of 15 Whitechapel Handbells, (We also have 10 bells belonging to our team leader) a grant application was made to Awards for All for the ammount that the new bells would cost, hoping that we would get something as "owt is better than nowt" as the saying goes, the plan was that the Church would "loan" us the money and we would fund raise to pay them back, as it turned out we didn't have to do this because we had the grant application paid in full, much to our surprise.

The bells were ordered from Whitechapel as a direct result from the grant, and were delivered mid December 2005, We had "on loan" the St Matthews set for our Christmas fundraising, but on Christmas Eve the bells were blessed in the family service, by our own Rector Richard Thorniley, we then played Hark the Herald Angels Sing, the first time they had been used apart from "trying them out" at home.

Since the formation of the St James' team we have gone from strength to strength, undertaking not only our Christmas fundraising and Rallies , but Weddings, Fete's, Concerts and other events.

On July 14th 2008 we heard that we were lucky enough to be awarded another grant from Awards for All, to purchase 12 more bells this will now make us a three octave team (37 Bells) and also to help with our other project the Harvington C of E First School Handbell Team after school club, which is under the leadership of our deputy conductor Sheila Hemming, we hope to have the new bells by the end of September.

The team would like to thank Awards for All and Clive Allen, who helped us achive this milestone in the teams advancement.

On Monday 4th August our new bells were delivered to us earlier than expected, this will now allow us to rehearse for our concert in October, but would like to thank the Worcester and District Change Ringers Association (W.D.C.R.A) for the "Loan" of there tune ringing handbells to help in the short term.

Our 2009 Autumn Concert will feature a lot of new pieces wich have been arranged for these new bells, and we hope to keep expanding our music repertoire to make nore use of these bells.

August 2011 we had an offer to go down to Port Isaac Cornwall, following an invitation from Fishermans Friends, the singing group that is not the sweets, to perform on the Platt, so ok we thought if we are going down to do that why not make it a tour, we had never done one before, so it was organised.

August 12th we arrived on the Platt, set up and ready to go for a 7pm start, there were estimated to be arround 1500 people that night, our bigest ever audience, we went down well, and had a lot of good comments, unfortunatley the rain came in so we had to cut it short, as we had no cover from the rain.

August 13th, This was an afternoon event, collecting for the Mayors Charity in Padstow. we performed at the Bandstand which we found out it was just an area, not a bandstand as such, there was quite a few people arround, just stopping to listen for however long they felt like it, after we had finished we went for a look round, and then going back to the Golden Lion pub in Port Isaac for a team meal, this was very good all round one long table.

August 14th, This morning found us in St Peter and Paul Church Port Isaac for the 9.45 service, we played the bells for all the hymns as there wasn't an organist, this duly done brought an end to our first tour, will we do it again ? yes it was great fun, just a question of when, but we have been invited back down to perform with Fishermans Friends again, but this time possibly do an event for the Port Isaac RNLI,so will have to see what happens