Church of Holy Cross

Church of Holy Cross

A church dating from the 11th to 15th centuries, restored and enlarged in 1872. Built of coursed squared limestone and ironstone with rubble walling and ironstone dressings, with lead roofs except for the tile roof of the porch. The building comprises a two-bay chancel, vestry and organ chamber (replacing the north chancel chapel), nave with north and south aisles, a south porch, and a west tower.

The chancel has a three-light east window with 19th-century Decorated tracery and two-light windows to the south; the south-east window is Perpendicular with a straight head, while the south-west window has 19th-century Decorated tracery. A small blocked low-side lancet window is present to the south-west. The vestry and organ chamber to the north contain three-light hollow-chamfered stone mullion windows to the north elevation, one-light windows and a door to the east with a stone lintel and hollow-chamfered Tudor-arched surround beneath a lean-to roof.

The nave features a clerestory of two two-light leaded windows to the north only, with wood lintels, and long and short work to the north-east and north-west angles. The north aisle has a projection at its east end containing a two-light window with ogee-headed lights and quatrefoil to a triangular head, a three-light Perpendicular window to the east of a blocked north door (with round-arched head and imposts), and a two-light west window with Y-tracery. The south aisle has a similar west window and comparable windows to the south-east and south-west, a three-light Perpendicular window to the east of the south porch, and a four-light east window with pointed cinquefoil-headed lights and quatrefoil to the head.

The hollow-chamfered south doorway features a chamfered stone surround and hood mould within a 17th-century gabled porch that has a round-arched doorway with keyblocks and imposts, and a stone sundial above with shaped top. The three-stage west tower displays a many-moulded west doorway with an old plank door and medieval hinges, a two-light window above with Y-tracery, bell-chamber openings with similar tracery, and a plain stone-coped parapet. Diagonal offset buttresses are present to the tower, south aisle and chancel. The body of the church has plain stone-coped parapets, and all windows except those to the vestry and clerestory are provided with hood moulds.

Interior features include a chancel piscina with pointed trefoil head, a blocked north door with similar head and an inscription above, a chamfered arch and double-chamfered arch to the vestry, and a tomb recess to the south with roll-moulded arch. A Norman chancel arch with round-arched head and carved imposts divides the chancel from the nave. The nave contains three-bay arcades with octagonal piers, polygonal responds, moulded capitals and double-chamfered arches. A chamfered arch on corbels is present at the east end of the north aisle, with a similar corbel to the north one bay west. The south aisle contains a piscina with cusped head and an aumbry. Blocked windows are visible on the south wall of the nave above the arcade on the south side, one apparently circular.

Furnishings include a 17th-century communion table in the north aisle and a polygonal 17th-century pulpit. Hanoverian Royal arms, in oil on canvas, hang over the tower arch. Two panels of much restored medieval glass remain in a south aisle window, set amongst old crown glass leaded quarries.

Monuments comprise a limestone wall monument to Thomas Loving, founder of a charity school, died 1684; a white marble wall monument to Thomas Coleman Welch, died 1770; and a wall monument with white marble sarcophagus inscription plaque on a grey marble ground, signed by J. Stephens of Worcester, commemorating William Drayson of Floore Fields (died 1840, High Sheriff 1839) and Thomas Drayson (died 1872) of Pattishall House, now demolished.