Church Of The Holy Cross

The Church of the Holy Cross is a parish church built between 1828 and 1830 by Samuel Manning, with alterations made in 1874-1875 by J.P. St Aubyn. The tower was rebuilt in 1912. It is constructed from coursed and dressed limestone and features a stone slate roof. The church has a wide aisleless nave, a chancel, a west tower, and a south porch. The south doorway is moulded and pointed arched, and the timber-framed porch, added in 1897 to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, includes openwork carved barge boards and traceried windows.

On the right side of the nave, there are two 3-light pointed windows with Decorated tracery, and one similar window on the north side. The chancel has a polygonal east end with diagonal buttresses and a single-light window with quatrefoil tracery on each side. There is a gabled north vestry and a two-stage tower with diagonal offset west buttresses, featuring 2-light belfry openings and a crenellated parapet.

Inside, the wide nave has a coved plaster ceiling, with a timber ribbed grille and carved timber bosses at the center. The tower arch is moulded and pointed, while the chancel arch is wider and has a carved screen. The chancel is elaborately decorated, with walls covered in inlaid mosaics by Powell of Whitefriars Glass Works, an alabaster reredos, an encaustic tiled floor, and a richly painted arched braced collar truss roof with two tiers of windbracing, all from 1887. The windows have trefoil rere-arches, and there is a trefoil arched aumbry recess and sedile with an adjoining piscina recess.

The interior of the tower is treated as a baptistery, with walls also decorated by Powell mosaics, including mother-of-pearl inlay on the splayed window jambs, added in 1913. The church features a Norman font bowl on a later base. Monuments from the early 19th century can be found on the north wall of the nave, and there is good stained glass, much of which dates from around 1887 and was created by Powell. Other nave windows were made by Heaton, Butler, and Bayne. This modest church has a notable late Victorian and Edwardian interior and is prominently situated, complementing the nearby Owlpen Manor.