St James the Apostle's Church Holywell is in the Diocese of St Asaph, in the community of Holywell in the county of Flintshire. There is evidence of a church at Holywell before the Norman conquest. The church was dedicated to St. Winifred for many centuries, but after extensive rebuilding in 1769, it was re-dedicated to St. James the Apostle.

The church is said to have been founded by St Beuno in the 7th Century and dedicated to his niece, St Winefride. The 'Churche of Haliwell' is first recorded in a documentary source in 1093, when the wife of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, added the church to her husband's previous bequest to the monks of St Werburgh's at Chester.

The present building has a 14th or 15th Century tower with Perpendicular windows. The aisles and galleries were added in 1769-70, together with an apse of the later 19th Century. Inside is the 16th Century effigy of a priest, a chest and a range of memorials from the 17th C entury onwards. The churchyard is shared with St Winefride's Chapel and overlooks the site of the Holy Well of St Winefride, a place of pilgrimage for over a thousand years. Monuments from the mid 17th Century have been preserved within the churchyard.

Reputedly the gallery pillars retain earlier stonework, but this has not been proved.

The apse was added in 1884 and the north vestry in 1905.

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Review St James the Apostles Church in Wales.