The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Holy Cross (now)
Parish church
It is probably fairest to describe Holy Cross as a church of 1876 and
1900–02, built reusing some medieval features. It is on a tiny site with
a churchyard no larger than the gardens of the nearby houses. Construction is
of flint with a neo-Tudor W gable. The building has a
nave and S aisle with a wooden arcade between, and an
aisleless chancel with a S vestry. The saddleback-roofed tower rises from the angle
between the chancel and the E end of the S aisle. The S
nave doorway is a reused 12thc. piece, and its companion has been reused as the
internal W tower arch. The N tower arch is broader but of a similar design, and
must originally have been a chancel arch. The font,
described as 12thc. by the VCH, is illustrated here but is surely 18thc. as
Pevsner suggests.
Parish church, formerly chapel
The nave has a mid 19thc. south doorway with a hoodmould with dog's head terminals of the mid 12thc. The north arcade of the nave, dating from c. 1200, has circular piers and abaci, moulded capitals and double chamfered arches. The north aisle was rebuilt in the late 13thc. and the west tower was added in the 15thc. The chancel was rebuilt 1903-4.
Parish church, formerly Benedictine house
The church lies on the SE side of Shrewsbury; it was built on an elevated gravel promontory where the River Meole ran into the River Severn. The present building, used as a parish church, incorporates the remains of the abbey of Shrewsbury. At the end of the 11thc Foregate was the main road and the abbey controlled the bridge. (Baker 2002, 25-34) The abbey church was built in the local red sandstone at the end of the 11thc on the site of an Anglo-Saxon chapel. It consists of an aisled nave, W tower, transepts and chancel. The nave is of 5 bays, the 3 E bays of the 11th or 12thc, and the 2 narrower W bays later, perhaps 14thc. The two sections are separated by a long pier, but the Romanesque elevation begins a 4th bay with part of an arch and capital to the W of this. Above the Norman arcade is a gallery arcade - the gallery was removed and the arcade fenestrated in the 14thc., but the piers and outer arches of the original gallery remain. A clerestorey above this, in a Norman style, is of Pearson's restoration of 1886-87, the 0riginal clerestory having been removed in 1728-29. The nave aisles were originally vaulted, perhaps with groins, but of the vault only a few of the responds survive with their capitals. The Norman arch from the N aisle to the transept survives and is heavy with a stilted arch. Further W all belongs to Pearson's rebuilding. The W tower is Norman in its lower parts, including parts of the W doorway, but it was remodelled in the 14th-15thc, and restored in 1862-63 by Pearson. The monastic buildings were to the S of the church, and the SW cloister doorway survives. The abbot's lodging was converted at the Dissolution, but everything above ground was destroyed c.1836 when a new road was constructed.
The surviving Romanesque elements of the building are the E section of the nave and aisles, with N and S doorways, and the nave arcade with the gallery arcade. Resistivity and radar studies in 1995-96 showed that the E end was apsidal and that it was later extended by a Lady Chapel but not replaced (Baker 2002, 33-34; Newman 2006, 517). In addition to the architectural features described above, there is a pillar piscina, now set up in the N nave aisle. The font is interesting in being made from a re-used Roman capital.