Church Of The Holy Cross

Church of the Holy Cross, Stuntney

This church, located on Soham Road in Ely, originated in the 12th century but was almost entirely rebuilt in 1876, retaining only three twelfth-century arches and possibly some medieval fabric in the chancel. The nave was rebuilt and a massive timber south arcade was inserted in 1900–3. The architects are unknown.

The building is constructed of stone and flint rubble with cut stone and brick dressings. The nave gables are timber-framed, and the roofs are tiled. The plan comprises a nave with a south aisle, a chancel with a southeast tower and vestry.

Externally, the church is almost entirely nineteenth-century in appearance, with picturesque detailing including stone roundels and a saddleback roof on the tower, and the use of different materials—flint, brick and dressed stone banding—to create polychrome effects. Some early fabric may be preserved in the chancel, particularly where stone rather than flint rubble is evident, and the three windows in the chancel north wall may be partly twelfth-century. There are three narrow, round-headed windows in the chancel east wall. Otherwise, the church has large, round-headed nineteenth-century windows with stone dressings. Extensive brick banding and dressings appear on the south aisle, southeast tower and chancel. The west end, facing the street, has a timber-framed gable and offset buttresses with stone dressings; a similar buttress stands at the southwest corner of the south aisle, whilst the south buttresses elsewhere have brick dressings and stone copings. The south door, positioned in the westernmost bay of the south aisle, is twelfth-century, reset from the previous church. It has an order of chevron with a billet hood-mould on detached nook shafts with crocket capitals. The southeast tower, in a vaguely Italianate style, is set at the east end of the south aisle and has a saddleback roof, paired Norman-style bell openings, a prominent clock face on the west side, decorative stone roundels, and a plain Norman-style south door.

Internally, the church is particularly interesting. It is dominated by the timber arcade and massive roof structure inserted in 1900–3. A twelfth-century doorway with chevron and nook shafts, now blocked and reset from the old church at the east end of the south aisle, formerly provided access to the base of the nineteenth-century tower. A larger twelfth-century arch, possibly the former chancel arch, opens from the south wall of the chancel into the tower. It also has chevron and nook shafts with crocket or foliate capitals. The triplet of windows at the east end of the chancel is set within a Romanesque-style blind arcade with chevron on the arches and shafts with crocket capitals. A small plain door connects the chancel to the southeast vestry. The chancel roof, probably dating from 1876, is boarded and has curved braces descending to stone corbels. The sills of the nave windows are very deeply recessed, and it is possible that the nave walls were thickened internally during the 1900–3 rebuilding.

The timber structure forming the south aisle and supporting the roof comprises a four-bay arcade with matching blind arcades against the north nave wall and the aisle south wall. The arcade posts have four shafts around a central core and moulded capitals. Four-way bracing extends from the arcade to the tie beams supporting the roof, with further arched braced collars above the tie beams and king posts. The braces are cusped to form tall trefoiled arches. The timber chancel arch, with a timber-framed gable above it, stands slightly behind the easternmost tie beam and is formed similarly to the rest of the nave arcading. It has a massive embattled rood tie beam with rood figures dating from 1987.

Notable fixtures include very fine fifteenth-century pinnacles from the medieval choir stalls at Ely, removed in the nineteenth century and reset around the inside of the chancel. The font, probably twelfth-century, has chubby scallops around a round bowl and is topped with a seventeenth-century cover with curly brackets. The nineteenth-century pulpit has a tiered stone base with a moulded cornice and recessed, round-headed panels on the sides, with an attached book rest of seventeenth-century date, possibly made from fragments. A probable seventeenth-century communion table stands at the east end of the south aisle. A seventeenth-century alms box, an unusual survival, remains attached to a heavy wall staple by an old chain. Simple nineteenth-century nave benches have plain poppyheads and moulded top rails. The church contains good nineteenth- and twentieth-century glass, including a window of 1964 signed by John Hayward.

Stuntney was given to Ely in the tenth century, and there may have been a church there at that date. A description of 1838 calls the church Saxon, but the description provided suggests it was rebuilt in the twelfth century: "It has doorways on each side of the nave (one of which is filled up) ornamented with chevron mouldings, as is also the great arch between the nave and chancel: the capitals of the pillars are foliated." An early engraving also suggests that the former church was wholly twelfth-century, possibly with a few later windows. Irregularities in the present plan, notably the widening of the western part of the chancel, suggest that the chancel was lengthened in the nineteenth century to incorporate the eastern part of the former nave. The chancel was restored and partially rebuilt, and the nave and tower were entirely rebuilt in 1876, reusing the former chancel arch and the north and south doors. A nineteenth-century photograph after the rebuilding shows it with a wide nave incorporating the present south aisle, a neo-Romanesque chancel arch with brick banding, and the reset twelfth-century arch leading into the base of the tower. Severe structural cracks above the chancel arch are clearly visible in this photograph. In 1900–3, the nave was rebuilt and the present roof and south arcade were inserted to provide stability for the structure.