St James' Church is a small Gothic Revival building constructed in 1878 from native kauri timber, replacing an earlier chapel from 1829 that had stood on the same site. It sits within the Kerikeri Basin heritage precinct, forming the third building in the cluster that includes the Stone Store and Kemp House. The church was designed by Marsden Clarke in a Latin cross plan and remains an active Anglican parish church.
The churchyard around it contains New Zealand's oldest cemetery still in operation, with graves dating back to before 1840. Walking through it is quietly striking — the headstones record early missionaries, their families, and the difficulties of colonial life in Northland. The oldest stones are simple, many worn almost smooth, and the inscriptions that remain tell of children and young adults who did not survive the passage or the early settlement years.
The church is open to visitors and is a five-minute walk from the Stone Store car park, along the path that runs beside the Kerikeri River. Combined with the Stone Store and Kemp House, it completes a circuit of the most historically significant half-kilometre in New Zealand.