Building record 638/3/1 - Church of the Holy Cross, Church Walk

Church built in 1752-8 by David Hiorne. The building has a good classical design with pedimented west end. The nave has gallieried aisles and the west tower has a spire in the form of obelisk. The building is of ashlar with a rusticated ground floor.

{1} Church. 1752-8 by David Hiorne. Porch rebuilt 1951. Ironstone ashlar. Rusticated ground floor. Low pitched roof behind balustrade. Chancel, aisled nave and west tower. 3 entrances on west. Slightly advanced pedimented central bay has pedimented porch. Giant pilasters and angles to central and side bays. Side entrances have Gibbs surrounds. Panelled doors. Windows with semi-circular heads on first floor. Central bay has Diocletian window and oculus in tympanum. Tower and spire in form of obelisk. Clock stage. Chancel has Venetian window. Aisles. 7 round arched windows. Modillion cornice. Balustraded parapet. Interior reported as having Doric columns on pedestals, entablatures carrying arches on ribbed vault. Heraldic glass in 2 upper west windows. Monuments: C18 and C19 grey and white marble wall monuments in chancel; finely carved gallery monument of 1707; 1800 gallery by Cox; 1741 monument by B. Palmer. Interior not inspected.

{8} Holy Cross Church. (Details of the original church are given in Bridges.) The church was taken down in 1752 and replaced by a new building designed by the Hiorns of Warwick. The church is constructed of sandstone in a classical style. The building is still in use as a church Film 2 Photo 2-6.

{9} Photo, possibly 1947, showing this and adjacent buildings;

{10} The sharing of the parish church resulted in a change of name for the parochial portion at some time in the 13th century. References to that part of the church as the Holy Cross date from this period, a time which perhaps saw a wider compartment added to a narrow nave for parochial purposes. This development may have reflected a trend towards a more rigorous separation of monks and parishioners which was a feature of the period. Such a separation could well have resulted in the two churches having different dedications, with the cross becoming the focus of local piety.
Arrangements for moving the parochial high altar, and with it (presumably) the cross or rood associated with it, were crucial to the re-ordering of the church which took place in the 14th century. Engravings and descriptions dating from the 18th century depicted the surviving priory building lying on the north side of the church, but a document of 1374 indicates that the cloister had at some time been on the south side of the church, in what was the conventional position. By 1374 the former north wall of the cloister had become the south wall of the south aisle, the parochial section of the church, and queries had arisen as to liability for its repair. The bishop ruled that the cost still pertained to the monks, and that they were also to pay for the eastward extension of the wall at a sufficient height to allow the high altar, formerly in the middle of the church, to be installed at the east end of the aisle. Monks and parishioners were to have common access, each having a key to the door which was to be a single door with good ironwork. The door in the porch at the west end of the nave in Tillemans’ engraving may have been this door.
At his visitation in 1442 the bishop learned that the parishioners were not using this door to enter the church but were instead gaining access through the great gates of the priory and through the cloister, by then on the north side of the church. He ordered that the great inner gates of the priory and the doors of the conventual church were to be kept shut ‘with such wariness and vigilance’ that no secular folk could have access through the cloister to the parish church. Bequests made by townspeople in the early 16th century provide some information about the internal arrangements of the church before the Reformation. Three testators asked to be buried within the church, one asking to be buried in the chapel of Holy Cross, one asking to be buried before the crucifix, and one asking to be buried in the ‘cross ile’ in front of the picture of our Blessed Lady. In 1513 one townswoman left 40 pence to Our Lady Chapel in the abbey. Other testators remembered Our Lady of Pity and Our Lady of Bethlehem over the vestry door. The church contained an image of St Augustine and an altar dedicated to St Nicholas. In 1527 one testator bequeathed 6s 8d for a banner of St George to be carried on ‘cross days’. Early grants in the priory chartulary were made ‘St Mary of La Charite and the monks of St Augustine’, attesting the links with the Cluniac house of La Charite sur Loire. The 1526 survey contained an entry for ‘the offeryng at the Image in the parish church called Mare a pyte’ but gave no amount.
After the Dissolution the church was used exclusively by the parish once again. Bridges and his assistant visited it in about 1720, by which time the old chancel had evidently fallen into disuse, for part of the nave had been partitioned off with wainscot to make a chancel. The church consisted of a nave, north and south aisles all of them leaded. At the end of the north aisle was a west tower, with a steeple and pinnacles with weather cocks at each corner. This had presumably been rebuilt after the fire in 1682 which had destroyed the steeple, roof and windows. The church was 60’ 2' in length, 54’ 2' in breadth, the chancel measured 27’ 11' x 23’, and the tower 14’ x 17’.
By 1752 the fabric of the church had deteriorated to such an extent that it was deemed unsafe for public worship and rebuilding was undertaken. The work took six years and cost £3,486, a sum raised without difficulty by local subscription. The new church was built in the classical manner, with its tower supposedly modelled on that of St-Giles-in-the-Fields in London, and with a simple interior. There are north, south and west galleries above north and south aisles, and a central aisle divided into north and south sides. A vestbule the width of the west end provides three entrances corresponding with the nave and aisles.

{11} (SP 57506257) Church (NAT).

{13} Drawing and notes of church prior to new tower being built, also drawing showing new tower dated 1892;

{14} Photo of interior of church;

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 1/48 (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), D06B p.3 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN44900.

<3> Pevsner N.; Cherry B., 1973, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p.172-3 (unchecked) (Series). SNN1320.

<4> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1985, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, (unchecked) (Series). SNN77383.

<5> Bridges J., 1791, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, p.48-49 (unchecked) (Book). SNN77325.

<6> Baker G., 1830, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, p.329-32 (unchecked) (Book). SNN77327.

<7> Glynne S., 1859, Church Notes of Sir Stephen Glynne, (unchecked) (Manuscript). SNN39492.

<8> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Industrial Period, (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN4.

<9> Photographs of buildings in Daventry (Photographs). SNN112541.

<10> Ballinger J.; Foard G., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Daventry (Medieval/Post Medieval/ Industrial), Section 3.2.1, 2 , 3.2.4, 3.3.1, 3.3.4 (Digital archive). SNN100501.

<11> Ordnance Survey Map (Scale/date), O.S. 1:10000 1981 (Map). SNN112944.

<12> Historic England, Undated, Holy Cross Church, Daventry, BF107292 (Archive). SNN113807.

<13> Dryden H.E.L., 1842-1895, Dryden Collection, DR/25/84/1,2 (Archive). SNN115.

<14> Miss June Swann, 1960s- 70s, Miss June Swann Photographic Archive (Photographs). SNN116665.

Record last edited

Jan 22 2025 11:20AM