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Holy Cross, Stuntney, Cambridgeshire

Location
(52°22′50″N, 0°16′59″E)
Stuntney
TL 555 783
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Cambridgeshire
now Cambridgeshire
  • Ron Baxter
  • Ron Baxter
21 August 2003

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Description

It is probably fairest to describe Holy Cross as a church of 1875-76 (by Rowe) and 1900–02 (by Caroe), 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 Caroe's wooden arcade between, inserted after subsidence, 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 may be 12thc. but was not so accepted by Pevsner.

History

In 1086 Stuntney was held by the Abbot of Ely as a Berewick of his manor of Ely.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Windows

Interior Features

Arches

Tower/Transept arches

Furnishings

Fonts

Comments/Opinions

The likeliest explanation for the two 12thc. arches re-used as tower arches is that the W arch was originally the N doorway and the N arch the chancel arch.

The font was described as 12thc. by the VCH, and as 'probably 12thc.' in the List Description, but was questioned by Pevsner (1954) who wrote 'But is it not C18 or at least completely re-tooled in the C18? It has heavy thick fluting which may be a rustic version of a familiar Wrenian and Georgian motif'. Bradley's update of 2014 mentions Pevsner's Wrenian parallel but is rather more cautious. There are at least two difficulties, we feel. First the font has signs of untidy staple removal: indicative of a medieval font. A 17thc. or 18thc. font would not have had staples to lock the lid, and if they had been present a remodelling as skilful as this wpould surely have made a better job of tidying things up. Then too, one might wonder what shape a 12thc.font would have been originally for it to end up like this in a remodelling. Certainly the low bowl is unusual for the 12thc., but not impossible (see for example the Buckinghamshire fonts, like Weston Turville).

Bibliography

S. Bradley and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire, New Haven and London 2014, 656.

Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record CB14912.

Historic England Listed Building, English Heritage Legacy ID: 435334

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England. Cambridgeshire, Harmondsworth 1954 (2nd ed. 1970), 462-63.

Victoria County History: Cambridgeshire. IV (1953), 85.