Church Of St Cross

The Church of St Cross is a Grade II* listed church located on Ashton New Road in Manchester, built between 1863 and 1866 by architect William Butterfield. The church is constructed of red brick, featuring multiple bands of sandstone and blue brick, with notable blue brick diapering and sandstone dressings. It is designed in the Gothic "Middle Pointed" style and has steeply-pitched slate roofs.

The structure includes a tall seven-bay nave with low north and south aisles, a west narthex, a southwest tower with a south porch, and a full-height two-bay chancel with low transepts. The tower is narrow and tall, characterized by slender angle buttresses and a steep pyramidal roof made of banded slate. It features a gabled south porch with a two-centred arched doorway, very narrow lancets on the next two stages, and triple-lancet louvred belfry windows.

The nave has a lean-to three-bay narthex at the west end, which includes a cusped doorway flanked by square-headed windows. Above this are three two-light west windows with quatrefoils in the heads and a simple plate-traceried rose window. The nave also has tall two-light clerestory windows. The chancel features two pairs of similar clerestory windows and a high-set five-light east window. The aisles are adorned with two-centred arched two-light windows, alternately paired and single, while the transepts have twin gables and two windows similar to those in the aisles.

Inside, the church boasts five-bay aisle arcades with quatrefoil piers, two-centred double-chamfered arches, and diapered spandrels. The aisles and clerestory are banded, and the west end is diapered. The interior features arch-braced roof trusses, a high chancel arch, geometrical-pattern painted panelling in the chancel with a carved stiff-leaf frieze, and above this, trefoil-headed blank arcading with polished shafts.