Church Of The Holy Cross

Church of the Holy Cross

An Anglican parish church with pre-conquest origins, containing fabric from the 14th and 15th centuries, with a chancel and north aisle added in the 19th century. The north aisle was designed by Benjamin Ferrey in 1875-6. The church is built of local lias stone, cut and squared, with Doulting stone dressings and stone slate roofs between stepped coped gables topped with cross finials.

The building follows a three-cell plan comprising a 2-bay chancel, 3-bay nave, and north aisle, with a west tower and south porch. The chancel may incorporate early work, though the church was recorded as having only a nave in 1822. It has a rough plinth without buttresses. The east window is 3-light in early 15th-century style with tracery under an arched label with square stops. Above this is a store block with a sundial mounted askew on an iron bracket. The north side has two 2-light windows: the eastern one is flat-arched with cinquefoil cusped lights under a square label with headstops, while the western one matches the east window. The south side has two 2-light early 15th-century style windows with printed arches and square stop labels. Between these windows is a small doorway with moulded 4-centre arches under a square stopped label.

The 19th-century north aisle has a plinth with angled corner buttresses fitted with moulded offsets. The east wall contains a 2-light arched window matching the chancel window, though this may be a reset 15th-century window. The north wall has a shallow coping over eaves moulding with gargoyles. The centre bay has a 3-light window while the others have 2-light windows with 16th-century style tracery of ogees and quatrefoils to flat arched lights with deep square labels to foliated stops. There is no west window to the aisle.

The nave has a chamfered plinth and bay buttresses with moulded offsets. In the south wall, the eastern window is 3-light, possibly 15th-century, with ogee traceried flat arched lights in a hollowed recess under a square label with animal stops. The western window is a 19th-century version of the chancel windows, with 2-light design. Between these windows stands the south porch, which has angled corner buttresses, a moulded pointed outer arch, and a plain chamfered inner arch. The porch roof is probably 15th-century, an archbraced collar truss of 2 bays with moulded main members and various timber bosses. The porch contains bench seats and a small open cusped lancet in the east wall, along with an early 20th-century gate with traceried panels.

The tower could be 14th-century in origin. It has three stages with a plinth, string courses, and gargoyles to the top string course. A shallow battlemented parapet crowns the structure. Angled corner buttresses rise two stages high. The tower has a square plan with a north-east stair turret containing 3 slit windows and two double quatrefoil pierced panels. The west face has a low moulded pointed arched doorway with an arched label, above which sits a 3-light 15th-century traceried window in a slightly hollowed recess under an arched label extended as a side string. The other sides are plain on the first stage. The second stage has a small 4-centre arched 2-light window on the south side only. The third stage has similar 2-light windows on each face with wood louvres, and a small doorway of unknown purpose on the south face.

The interior is largely 19th-century in character. The chancel is austere with a 19th-century arch-braced collar truss roof. An early 14th-century tall pointed arched piscina with a stone shelf stands in the chancel. The chancel arch is nearly 4-centred with small centre shaft columns and turned caps. A door to the former rood loft is visible in the north wall. The nave arcade is 19th-century with bell-cap stilted segmental arches and a 19th-century roof. A tall moulded pointed tower arch features stiff-leaf foliage capitals to full-length shafts. The north aisle remains unplastered.

The church's fittings include an octagonal panelled wood pulpit dated 1632 and a probably 14th-century font. The font is octagonal with quatrefoil panelled faces, a traceried underbowl, and a rather slim traceried octagonal shaft on a 19th-century base.

The first recorded rector dates to 1319. The diarist Parson Woodforde served as curate here from January 1764 to October 1765.