Church Of The Holy Rood

The Church of the Holy Rood is an Anglican parish church with a Saxon foundation, exhibiting work from various periods, including Norman elements, a 15th-century tower, and a restoration in 1870. It is primarily constructed of coursed limestone with some random walling, featuring ashlar for the tower. The chancel, porch, and vestry have stone slate roofs with coped verges, saddlestones with cross finials, while the remaining roof is not visible. The church follows a cruciform plan with a west tower, a nave with a south porch and transepts, and a chancel with a north vestry.

The tower, of three stages, incorporates string courses, a plinth, diagonal stepped buttresses, an embattled parapet, and corner gargoyles below the parapet. The lowest stage contains a tall two-light west window, and arched two-light belfry louvres feature on each face of the top stage. The nave roof was lowered in the 15th century, with an embattled parapet added, including a single-arch bellcote at the east end. Two small windows from a former clerestory remain above the south transept. The nave's north and south walls each feature two-light Perpendicular windows. A Saxon doorway is obscured by a heating installation, flanked by small Norman windows with splayed reveals, partially blocked on the east side. The chancel's east wall incorporates a three-light Perpendicular window, cutting across a string course, and a Decorated two-light window. The south wall of the chancel features a 19th-century priest’s door, a wall tablet, and a single light. The north vestry dates to 1870. The late 13th-century transepts have windows of differing periods on each wall. The south porch has stone side seats and a square niche on the right, with an original inner door.

Inside, the nave’s roof is 15th century, comprising seven bays with three moulded transverse beams, supported on slightly cambered braced cross beams with struts to stone corbels. The chancel arch is transitional with a chevron moulding and carved capitals. The transepts contain Early English arches and Jacobean pews. The north transept contains remains of 14th-century wall paintings around windows with cusped rere-arches, an Early English piscina and credence, and large recumbent effigies of George Lloyd and his wife (died 1584) on a tomb chest with a pedimented canopy on fluted columns. The south transept features a series of 17th-century Latin wall tablets belonging to the Pleydell family, recording date and hour of death. A marble monument to Robert Pleydell (died 1719), sculpted by Edward Stanton, is located in the chancel. Other features include a plain Norman cylindrical font and a Perpendicular stone pulpit.