Holy Cross Sherston

Holy Cross, Sherston is a beautiful building at the heart of this large village. 

There was certainly a major Anglo-Saxon settlement in Sherston as evidenced by the large earthwork to the west of the vicarage, the Anglo Saxon cross base in the vicarage garden, and the naming of the battle of Sherston in 1016.  An Anglo Saxon timber church, in the expected location in relation to the earthwork almost certainly stood on the site of the present church.

Holy Cross is an impressive church and, like the best of English parish churches, an amalgam of elements across the years.  The most obvious feature is the crossing tower which seems rather too large for the church that supports it.  It is, however, not an original medieval tower, except at its lowest stages, and was designed by Thomas Sumsion in 1730.

The building history is clearer from the inside.  There is a late Norman north arcade, again with trumpet scallops; the zigzag decoration of the arches is at right angles to the wall surface.  The crossing arches are Early English resting on excellently carved heads of a king and a knight; the north transept is of the same date, as is the north aisle.  The chancel is later in the 13th century although drastically restored by Ewan Christian (1814-95). Perpendicular work follows in the porch, with a fine lierne vault, south aisle, south chapel, and the west windows of the nave and north aisle.  There is an ambulatory from the north transept to the chancel, a distinctive Wiltshire feature.

The pulpit is Jacobean and the railings in the north chapel a little later.  There many good monuments: a mid 13th century civilian in the north transept north wall; a 14th century tomb recess in the north aisle; a tablet to Anne Hodges, died 1676; Joyce Hitchings, died 1715.  To the Estcourt Cresswell family an 18th century monument of a mourning woman by an urn; William Jenkins, died 1803, seated woman by an urn; and Richard Estcourt Cresswell, died 1841, Grecian with a praying woman.

The most famous item at Sherston is the notorious ‘Rattlebones’ on the exterior of the south porch.  Not, as often supposed, Anglo Saxon but Norman and undoubtedly an unidentified saint.  However, many legends about him abound.