Although St James the Less is now highly regarded – Pevsner described it as "one of the finest Gothic Revival churches anywhere" – views of its merits were not uniformly positive at the time of its construction.
The British Almanac and Companion for 1864 complained of how, for the current generation of church architects,

 
irregularity of outline seems now to be the guiding principle in designing a church, symmetry and simplicity the abiding terror of the Church architect.
To avoid these, he will snip up the outside of his church into as many odd peaks and projections, and decorate it with as many 'bands', lines and dubious ornaments, as though he were a Nuremberg toy-maker.

 
The reviewer in The Ecclesiologist in 1861 was much more positive, however, commenting that Street had "stepped beyond the mere repetition of English mediaeval forms, to produce a building in which a free eclectic manipulation of parts has been grafted upon a system of polychromatic construction, having its basis on the fact that London is a brick town."
 The Illustrated London News contrasted the church with its impoverished surroundings, calling it "a lily among weeds".

Charles Eastlake, in his A History of the Gothic Revival (1872), declared that "the whole character of the building, whether we regard its plan, its distinctive external or internal decorations is eminently un-English".
He was particularly fulsome in praise of its campanile-like tower, declaring that "if Mr. Street had never designed anything but the campanile of this church–and its Italian character justifies the name–it would be sufficient to proclaim him an artist.
In form, proportion of parts, decorative detail, and use of colour, it seems to leave little to be desired."
The church was no mere imitation of continental European forms either; as Street's son Arthur put it, 
what is Italian has become so entirely absorbed in what belongs to the architect's own inspiration, that it is hard to put the finger on any actual features which recall Italian examples, the influence being traceable rather in the choice and management of materials, and the general massing of the block of buildings, than in any more specific points.
Although St James the Less is now highly regarded – Pevsner described it as "one of the finest Gothic Revival churches anywhere" – views of its merits were not uniformly positive at the time of its construction. The British Almanac and Companion for 1864 complained of how, for the current generation of church architects,

 
irregularity of outline seems now to be the guiding principle in designing a church, symmetry and simplicity the abiding terror of the Church architect. To avoid these, he will snip up the outside of his church into as many odd peaks and projections, and decorate it with as many 'bands', lines and dubious ornaments, as though he were a Nuremberg toy-maker.
 
The reviewer in The Ecclesiologist in 1861 was much more positive, however, commenting that Street had "stepped beyond the mere repetition of English mediaeval forms, to produce a building in which a free eclectic manipulation of parts has been grafted upon a system of polychromatic construction, having its basis on the fact that London is a brick town."  The Illustrated London News contrasted the church with its impoverished surroundings, calling it "a lily among weeds".
Charles Eastlake, in his A History of the Gothic Revival (1872), declared that "the whole character of the building, whether we regard its plan, its distinctive external or internal decorations is eminently un-English". He was particularly fulsome in praise of its campanile-like tower, declaring that "if Mr. Street had never designed anything but the campanile of this church–and its Italian character justifies the name–it would be sufficient to proclaim him an artist. In form, proportion of parts, decorative detail, and use of colour, it seems to leave little to be desired." The church was no mere imitation of continental European forms either; as Street's son Arthur put it, 
what is Italian has become so entirely absorbed in what belongs to the architect's own inspiration, that it is hard to put the finger on any actual features which recall Italian examples, the influence being traceable rather in the choice and management of materials, and the general massing of the block of buildings, than in any more specific points.
St James the Less, Pimlico