Description

ST 79 NE OWLPEN OWLPEN VILLAGE

Church of the Holy Cross
5/352

30.6.61

GV II

Parish church. 1828-30 by Samuel Manning; altered 1874-5 by J.P.
St Aubyn. Tower rebuilt 1912. Coursed and dressed limestone;
stone slate roof. Wide aisleless nave, chancel, west tower and
south porch. Moulded pointed arched south doorway, timber framed
porch dated 1897 and added for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee,
this having openwork carved barge boards and traceried windows.
Two 3-light pointed nave windows to right with Decorated tracery;
one similar window on north side. Polygonal east end to chancel
with diagonal buttresses; single-light window with quatrefoil
tracery to each side. Gabled north vestry. Two-stage tower with
diagonal offset west buttresses, 2-light belfry openings;
crenellated parapet.
Interior: wide nave with coved plaster ceiling; at centre a
timber ribbed grille with carved timber bosses. Moulded pointed
tower arch and wider chancel arch with carved screen. Elaborately
decorated chancel, walls covered with inlaid mosaics by Powell of
Whitefriars Glass Works, alabaster reredos, encaustic tiled floor
and richly painted arched braced collar truss roof with 2 tiers of
windbracing, all of 1887. Trefoil rere-arches to windows. Trefoil
arched aumbry recess and sedile with adjoining piscina recess.
Interior of tower treated as baptistery, walls also decorated by
Powell mosaics, including mother-of-pearl inlay to splayed window
jambs, this added 1913. Norman font bowl on later base.
Monuments, some dating from early C19, on north wall of nave. Good
stained glass, much of c1887 by Powell. Other nave windows by
Heaton, Butler and Bayne. A modest church with good late Victorian
and Edwardian interior, in a prominent position and grouping well
with Owlpen Manor (q.v.).
(C.N. Mander, Church Guide, 1980; D. Verey, Cotswold Churches,
1976 and Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds, 1979)

Listing NGR: ST7998598402

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26383381

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)