Church Of The Holy Cross

CHURCH OF THE HOLY CROSS

This parish church at Binstead has late 11th-century origins with substantial mid-13th-century remodelling. The nave was demolished and rebuilt in elongated form during 1843–1845 by the noted Ryde architect Thomas Hellyer. A north aisle was added in 1875, possibly by G T Windyer Morris. The building was restored following a serious fire in 1969, with re-dedication in 1971.

The church is constructed of local Binstead stone with tile and slate roofs. The plan consists of a nave with west organ gallery, chancel, north aisle, south porch, northeast vestry, and a northwest modern extension housing kitchen, WCs and boiler house.

The exterior south elevation features the nave with lancet windows set beneath a continuous hood mould and pitched tiled roofs. A re-used stone inscription at the base of the southeast buttress possibly reads 'CW 1798'. An awkward west gallery access arrangement to the west of the porch was added in the mid-19th century in different fabric. The chancel displays herringbone masonry, a circular mass dial, a low square-headed medieval window, and a mid-13th-century tracery window with two lights. The east elevation has mid-13th-century three-light tracery and further herringbone masonry. The north elevation shows herringbone masonry and a cusped-head lancet to the chancel with pitched slate roofs to the vestry and lean-to aisle. The west elevation has paired lancets lighting the ground floor and gallery; the gallery lancets feature zoomorphic keystones depicting a griffin and possibly a dragon. A simple west gabled bellcote crowns this elevation. A medieval bell from Quarr Abbey is hung within. The gable is decorated by an engaged shaft supported on a grotesque corbel, presumably relating to the former belfry.

The interior nave features a mid-20th-century oak hammer-beam roof supported on carved stone corbels, some of which are mid-20th-century replacements. The west organ gallery has a modern balcony and partition wall concealing a meeting room. The chancel has a ribbed panelled ceiling, probably by Hellyer, with replacement bosses (originals damaged in the 1969 fire). A medieval piscina sits in a window ledge south of the altar. The southwest square-headed medieval window has deep internal splay and blind trefoil. The north aisle is a four-bay arcade of pointed arches supported on plain round pillars with simple moulded capitals and has a boarded late-19th-century roof. Stone slab, tile and parquet flooring is laid throughout.

Principal furnishings include a carved wooden altar, probably late 16th or early 17th-century Flemish, depicting scenes of the Last Supper and Nativity. Dark oak traceried panelling to the chancel, brought from Winchester College Chapel in 1932 and attributed to William Butterfield, lines the chancel walls. A carved lectern with a Moses tableau of mid-19th-century date serves the rector's chair. A brass wall-mounted memorial plaque to the parish fallen of the First World War, erected May 1921, records local casualties and unusually includes Mary Gartside-Tipping, killed in France in 1917 while serving with the Women's Emergency Corps and awarded the Croix de Guerre. An octagonal stone font of 1844 was designed by the Hon Henry Graves. Stained glass includes some Victorian glazing. Accomplished lancets by Gabriel Loire of Chartres depict St John the Baptist (1971) and Our Lady of Quarr (1987). The chancel northeast lancet shows the Holy Spirit (1972), while the southeast nave lancet depicts a symbolic cross. West gallery lancets show a peacock and phoenix rising from flames, all early-1970s work by Lawrence Lee.

The churchyard gate to the southeast incorporates Norman order mouldings from the former north door. Above the arch sits a stone figure with enlarged head and exaggerated ears, astride a beast's head. This sculpture, known locally as 'The Idol', was restored in the early 21st century. The figure has been identified by some as a Sheela-na-gig associated with fertility and protection, though a drawing of 1819 in the National Monuments Record suggests this identification may be uncertain.

The church's history is closely linked to quarrying. Permission to extract Quarr stone at Binstead for Winchester Cathedral was granted shortly after the Norman Conquest. This same stone was used to build nearby Quarr Abbey, founded in 1131, and it has been suggested that Holy Cross was constructed around 1150 as a church for the quarrymen. The herringbone masonry of the chancel suggests a Norman date, but the mid-13th-century chancel windows indicate significant 13th-century remodelling. A painting by John Nixon (1755–1818) held in Carisbrooke Castle Museum shows the church's early plan as a simple single-cell structure with nave and chancel, together with a shingled square belfry and south porch, both later replaced during the Victorian period. A photograph in the National Monuments Record from around 1900 shows the elaborate Victorian belfry that stood until its replacement by the current bellcote in 1925.

The historic elements of the churchyard gate originally formed the north door of the church until the 19th century, when they were presumably relocated during the addition of the north aisle in the 1870s.