The parish church of St James stands on the corner of Church Street and Boston Road in the market town of Spilsby on the southern edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds. It was built around the beginning of the fourteenth century in the local Spilsby green sandstone, but has since been much altered and, apart from the tower, it was covered with Ancaster stone in 1879.

Memorials in the church include those of the Willoughby de Eresby family and to the explorer Sir John Franklin, who was born in Spilsby and died in the Arctic during an expedition to navigate and chart the Northwest Passage.