Holy Cross and All Saints, Warley

Introduction

Holy Cross and All Saints in Warley, in the Diocese of Brentwood, was built as a mission church for the Roman Catholic soldiers of Warley barracks and was donated by Countess Tasker.

Architecture and furnishings

The church was extended in 1886. The church is built of rock-faced Kentish ragstone with Lancaster stone dressings and slate roofs. The church has a nave, chancel with bell-turret on the SE corner, Lady Chapel on the S side, and N and S aisles, the N aisle added in 1886. The church has a carved stone reredos and altar by Thomas Earp, the altar with a carved relief of the Last Supper has been moved forward.

The church is designed in the Early English style. The east end features two lancets and buttresses, with a Crucifixion above the centre buttress, complete with a canopy and quatrefoil in the gable. At the southeast corner stands a circular turret with an arcaded belfry and a short conical spire, all built in ashlar. The Lady Chapel on the south side has a double span roof.

The south aisle has a gabled porch, while the north aisle includes an integral vestry with a small gabled dormer and chimney-stack. A large rose window is set in the west gable. Inside, the three-bay arcades lack capitals, with double chamfers dying into the piers. The nave roof is an arched brace roof supported on long corbelled colonnettes.

Similar colonnettes support the stone ribs of the chancel vault. Romanesque arcading surrounds the chancel.