Church Of The Holy Cross

The Church of the Holy Cross is a parish church dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, with significant restoration work carried out in 1882 by Benjamin Ferrey, the tower in 1912, the church in 1920, and a vestry added in 1958. The church is constructed of squared and coursed lias stone at the north and east ends, roughcast elsewhere, with a rendered tower, Ham stone dressings, and slate roofs with coped verges. The vestry has a concrete tile roof.

The building comprises a west tower, a three-bay nave, a south porch, a chancel and a north east vestry. The crenellated three-stage tower features string courses with gargoyles, set-back buttresses rising to two-light bell openings with Somerset tracery, a single trefoil-headed opening below, and a three-light west window set on a lintel of Tudor arch head doorway with decorated spandrels and carved animals’ heads. A moulded plinth is present, along with a north east stair turret and a buttress at the west end of the nave inscribed with the date MCMXII and a lead plaque indicating the date of the tower restoration. To the left of the porch is a two-light window; the porch itself is single-storey, gabled and has a moulded arched entrance and a wagon roof. Inside the porch is a lias tablet commemorating Joseph Wood, who died in 1817. To the right is a small, two-light, cinquefoil-headed roof loft window with mullions set below the eaves, a buttress, and two two-light windows to the diagonally buttressed chancel. The chancel includes a three-light east window and an early 19th-century tablet to Joseph Webber. The 1958 vestry addition has a wooden two-light window. A wide, stepped buttress sits on the site of a former rood stair, with a wall to the right partly rebuilt below a two-light mullioned rood loft window. Three two-light windows are set into the nave, with stepped buttresses between.

Inside, the chancel is rendered and grooved to resemble ashlar, while the nave is roughcast. A Perpendicular chancel arch and a moulded pointed tower arch are present. The chancel has a 16th-century ceiled wagon roof with moulded ribs and wall plate; the nave has a boarded wagon roof, the wall plate of which is believed to be dated 1652. All nave windows have hoodmould terminals, generally depicting angels with shields, some knights, and a bull. A moulded doorway in the north wall of the chancel, now leading to the vestry, is believed to be an excommunication doorway. A pointed arch rood stair doorway leads to a rood loft opening above; it is thought the stairs remain intact. A chamfered 4-centred arch opening to the west of the entrance is believed to be for stairs to a room above the porch, planned when a two-storey porch was intended. To the east of the entrance is a chamfered arched niche, thought to be a holy water stoop. A fine collection of bench ends exists, some dated 1542, with others carved in a similar style by parishioners between 1890 and 1914. An 18th-century pulpit features Ionic fluted columns and inlay in the panels, allegedly imported from another church in the late 19th century. A 13th-century octagonal font is also present, alongside stained glass in the west window given by Miss Chisholm-Batten, who died in 1902; a hatchment is also to be found. The Ten Commandments are painted on two tin sheets within the tower.