Church Of The Holy Rood

The Church of the Holy Rood is a church dating back to the 13th century, with the tower being added in the 14th century. It is constructed from limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has stone-slate and lead roofs. The church consists of a nave, chancel, west tower, and south porch.

The chancel, dating to the 13th century, has two lancet windows to the north, and a blocked round-headed doorway. To the south, a small lancet window remains beside a 13th-century priest's door with two orders of roll moulding, and a 15th-century window of two cinquefoil lights under a label. The nave has, to the south, two trefoil-headed lancets, and a two-light window which was converted in the 15th century into a tall mullioned and transomed window. A small 17th-century porch with an old studded door shelters a Decorated doorway with panelled doors. To the north of the nave is another lancet, a two-light window with Y-tracery, and a blocked door. The west wall has a central buttress between a trefoil lancet and a blocked lancet. The gable has been built up to form the west wall of the 14th-century internal tower, which features arched, traceried, mullioned and transomed belfry openings below a crenellated and pinnacled parapet.

Inside the church, the chancel contains a trefoil-headed piscina, a projecting sedilium with one stone armrest, and a stone bench, all to the south; the chancel arch dates to the 14th century. The western bay of the wide nave is occupied by the tower, which is set on two tall octagonal piers. The nave roof retains remnants of a 13th-century coupled-rafter roof at the east end, including a tie beam with a rare painted doom inscription; the remainder of the nave roof is likely 14th century, with arched windbraces to the lower purlins. Wall paintings include a large early 14th-century depiction of St. Christopher, with a Norman-French inscription, over the blocked north door, alongside contemporary masonry decoration in red over much of the nave walls. The church contains 15th-century benches with four fleur-de-lys poppy heads in the nave, and four more elaborate bench ends in the chancel; an early 16th-century screen with painted linenfold panelling and tracery; an 18th-century panelled manorial pew and reading desk; and a late 18th/early 19th-century western gallery. Monuments include a marble wall memorial to Anne Nourse, who died in 1669, featuring Corinthian pilasters and a swan-necked pediment; 17th-century ledgers; and five late 18th/early 19th-century hatchments of members of the Weyland family.