Holy Cross Church

Holy Cross Church is a small cruciform-plan church built in Gothic style. It comprises a nave, chancel, south and north transepts, a west bellcote, and a west porch. The building is constructed of rubble stone under slate roofs with sandstone dressings.

The external detail includes diagonal buttresses with offsets to the angles, kneelers and moulded copings to the gables, large apex finials, and a plinth. The windows are tall with shallow-pointed arches and double chamfers under hoodmoulds. They contain groups of transomed lancets of timber, except for the east and west windows.

Against the west end is a small gabled porch with its entrance facing north. The porch contains a Tudor-arched chamfered entrance now fitted with steel gates. A similar doorway to the left leads into the church and has a wooden door and quarry tile floor. In the west gable above the porch is a rose window underneath a hoodmould. The bellcote is gabled with a cross finial and has an opening with a lancet head.

The south wall of the nave has two windows, each with two lancets. A similar three-lancet window occupies the gable end of the south transept, though it is blocked behind the tracery. The chancel is roughcast to the east gable end and contains a decorated east window with five trefoiled lights. A square side stack stands on the east side of the north transept. The windows to the north side match those on the south side. A vestry door on the west side of the north transept has a shallow pointed arch, chamfer, and hoodmould with diagonal end bosses.

The interior is undivided across the nave, chancel, and transepts. Plaster groin vaults meet at the crossing with moulded cornices and wainscot panelling. One tie beam spans the nave, above which is an arcade of openwork lancets. The rose window to the west end is set within a chamfered arched surround with splayed sill and contains stained glass.

An ornate three-sided rood screen projects into the crossing. It features delicate openwork arches above low panelling with cusped ogee heads, and friezes of trefoiled lancets above the arches. The top rail has reeding. Above the central entrance arch is a raised frieze of quatrefoils in a lattice surmounted by a large cross. A polygonal pulpit is built into the right end of the screen with blind cusped lancets. The vestry, located in the north transept, is divided by a panelled screen with a segmental headed doorway and a dentilled frieze above. A panelled organ occupies the south transept, facing west.

An octagonal font stands at the west end on an octagonal stem and square plinth. A small polygonal wood-panelled pulpit to the northeast is mounted on a wider octagonal stone base. Barley twist iron uprights with scrolls and leaves are mounted on the base and surround the pulpit. The altar rail features similar barley twist uprights with a moulded wooden handrail. Pews with moulded bench ends occupy the nave and crossing. Choir stalls feature openwork lancet decoration. The nave has a quarry tile floor with shields and heraldic emblems.

The east window contains stained glass depicting the crucifixion in the centre with the resurrection and ascension in the flanking lights. It is dedicated to Ann Vintin, 1823–1905, of Tai Bach. Two bronze plaques mounted on the north wall commemorate Hopkin Llewellyn Prichard (died 1870) and Margaret Jenkins (died 1923). A grey marble tablet with an arched head stands in memory of Robert Lindsay of Glan Afon, Tai Bach, and his wife, whose remains are in a vault in St Mary's Church, Swansea.