Abbey Church Of Holy Cross With Saint Edburgha

This is a former abbey, now the parish church. The monastery was founded in the 7th century. The present building dates from the 11th to 13th centuries, with some later medieval remodelling. After the Dissolution, 17th-century buttressing was added to shore up the structure. A major restoration was undertaken in the 1860s by Giles Gilbert Scott, with further alterations in the early 20th century.

The church is built mainly of limestone ashlar with roofs of plain tile, stone tile, and lead, all behind parapets. The plan consists of an apse, chancel with choir aisles, north and south transepts, and a crossing tower. The nave was demolished at the Dissolution.

Exterior

The 19th-century apse has narrow lancet windows beneath a continuous hoodmould, diagonal buttresses with offsets, a corbel table, and a steeply pitched roof.

The chancel north aisle features moulded single-light windows under a continuous hoodmould, a plain corbel table, a moulded plinth, and offset buttresses. These buttresses have moulded strings and crocketed pinnacles with geometric blind tracery, and rise as flying buttresses extending to the clerestory. The north clerestory has single-light windows with deep moulded embrasures surmounted by a continuous hoodmould, a Lombard frieze, and an embattled parapet. The polygonal east end is crowned with crocketed pinnacles.

The northeast chapel has a coped gable with an apex stone and Perpendicular tracery in its east window. The south chancel aisle is similar to the north aisle but has Perpendicular windows to the east, southeast, and south. It features clasping buttresses, some incorporating slender three-quarter-round shafts, and a blocked pointed moulded arch to the former south transept chapel with clustered shaft piers and remains of vaulting springers.

The south transept is mostly Romanesque. Its east wall has two further attached moulded pointed arches with blocked round-arched features. Adjacent are three bays of 13th-century crocketed blind arcading from the former sedilia and piscina, with quatrefoil mouldings. An embattled parapet with a Lombard frieze incorporates grotesques.

The south wall of the south transept displays chevron-moulded blind arcading to the gable, interspersed with single round-headed lights, a cable-moulded string course, a remodelled triple lancet window, the roofline of former monastic buildings, a central pier, and a blocked doorway.

The west wall of the south transept has a similar Lombard frieze, the roofline of the former nave south aisle, a blocked aisle round arch with an adjacent three-light Perpendicular window, and lancets to a corner stair turret.

The west wall features a blocked round-headed crossing arch with a relieving arch above. Remains of the nave and arcade walls include Romanesque piers with cushion capitals. A heavily moulded former south doorway of six orders has stiff-leaf capitals to the east. An inserted west window and door are present, and the entire west wall is now heavily buttressed.

The north transept has been remodelled and reinforced but retains a blocked round-headed arch to the former north nave arcade.

The tower, completed in 1330, rises in four stages. Four octagonal pinnacles, embattled at their bases, are surmounted by large crockets with weathervanes. The ringing chamber has four windows to each side, each of two lights with geometric tracery. The central pair are louvred and flanked by blind outer windows. A ballflower-moulded string course and parapet cap this level. The third stage has an embattled string course with ballflower mouldings at the base and two-light windows with trefoil-headed tracery. On the west side, the former nave roofline is visible along with a small blocked round-arched window. On the east, north, and south sides, former chancel and transept rooflines interrupt the second-stage windows. Lancets light the staircase corner turrets.

Interior

The interior comprises the apse and former chancel of five bays, now used as the church, plus the crossing with the nave truncated at the west arch.

The east apse, built in the 19th century in Early English style on the site of the former Lady Chapel, is five-sided with three narrow lancets to the east end flanked by triple-arched blind arcades. All feature narrow pointed moulded arches, stiff-leaf capitals, and detached shafts, some of Purbeck marble. The vault has heavily moulded ribs and a central boss.

The chancel, rebuilt following a fire in 1223, has a polygonal east end with a pointed east arch of six orders with roll mouldings. This is supported by stiff-leaf capitals above clustered piers of detached or three-quarter-round shafts, some of Purbeck marble. Similar, unmarbled piers form the chancel arcades. A combined triforium and clerestory rises above a moulded string course, incorporating single pointed lights within triple pointed-arched arcades of tall clustered shafts with stiff-leaf capitals, blind at the east end. Tierceron vaults have ribs rising from stiff-leaf corbels and stiff-leaf bosses.

The aisles have slender attached piers of clustered shafts with stiff-leaf capitals and quadripartite vaults with roll-moulded ribs. The north aisle lancet windows are all moulded with shafts and stiff-leaf decoration.

The northeast chapel has a moulded piscina in the south wall and a trefoil-headed shallow niche on the east wall. The south aisle has mainly Perpendicular windows. The southeast chapel contains medieval floor tiles and a moulded piscina in the south wall.

The north transept features a blocked Romanesque arch with moulded capitals leading to the north choir aisle. Above this are a later adapted opening, a blocked opening, and the former roofline. A taller Romanesque arch with cushion capitals leads to the former nave north aisle.

The south transept is mainly Romanesque, with a roll-moulded arch with cushion capitals to the south choir aisle. A wider arch to the former east chapel is now blocked and fitted with inserted later medieval blind arcading of eight bays of cusped tracery surmounted by coving with leaf motifs. A deep, splayed, moulded round-arched window is present, with a blocked doorway above. Remains of bead-moulded blind arcading, now shaftless, extend around the southeast and south walls. Above is a Romanesque triforium arcade with heavy capitals rising from a partly moulded string course. A similar clerestory arcade above has four pierced quatrefoils in the south wall. A round arch leads to the southwest staircase turret. A blocked tall south nave aisle arch matches the north aisle arch. The cross-vault has moulded ribs and leaf bosses incorporating shields along the ridge rib.

The crossing features tall round arches with double three-quarter-round shafts and some figurative but mainly cushion capitals. Above, in the tower, are two tiers of trefoil-headed arcading with heavily moulded and partly embattled string courses, part blind and part incorporating two-light tower windows with trefoil heads set back behind detached shafts. An unusual bell cage was erected in 1864 by Gilbert Scott.

Fittings

A Romanesque font at the northwest features seated figures under a billet-moulded arcade, with a replaced lower pedestal and cover.

A benefaction board to Henry Smith and others, dated 1626, on the northeast tower arch, has a painted inscription on painted boards within a moulded wooden frame.

An 18th-century hatchment over the north entrance is of painted canvas with the motto "Resurgam". Further hatchments in the southeast transept bear the inscriptions "Morses Omnibus Communis" and "In Coelo Quies".

Monuments

Freestanding effigies in the south transept include, to the east, an abbot (possibly William de Harvington or Abbot Hert) on a tomb chest incorporating quatrefoils, and to the west, a cross-legged knight in chain mail (possibly Sir William de Harley, 13th century).

On the southwest wall, the painted Haselwood wall monument commemorates Thomas (died 1624), Elizabeth, and Sir Francis. It comprises one recumbent and two kneeling figures, a blank inscription panel within a cartouche to the rear, three freestanding piers supporting elaborately carved arms, and a chest with strapwork panels and scagliola decoration. A further monument to Fulke and Dorothy Haselwood shows nine children in relief.

Other modest 18th- and 19th-century wall monuments are present. In the south transept, a freestanding war memorial features a cast bronze figure of Immortality by Alfred Drury. Many ledger slabs are set into the floor throughout.

A parchment inspeximus of the Royal Privileges of the Abbey of Pershore, dated 1453, is fixed to the crossing south wall in a metal case.

A 19th-century wall painting in medieval style decorates the west wall of the crossing. Traces of medieval wall painting survive on the crossing piers.

A section of late medieval woodcarving incorporating an inscription is in the northeast transept. A late medieval wooden chest stands against the west wall.

Stained Glass

The stained glass includes windows by Clayton and Bell, Hardman and Co, and Kempe.