St Cross Church, Oxford

St Cross Church
Church of St Cross in Holywell
St Cross church from the south-west, with Holywell Manor House behind it on the left.
Location	Oxford
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Church of England
History
Founded	9th century
Architecture
Status	Balliol College's historic collections centre (previously parish church)
Functional status	Preserved
Heritage designation	Grade I listed (building) Grade II listed (wall)
Closed	Deconsecrated in 2008
Specifications
Number of towers	1
Administration
Parish	Holywell (transferred to University Church of St Mary the Virgin)
Diocese	Oxford (formerly)

St Cross Church is a former church, now a historic collections centre, in Oxford, England, to the northeast of the centre of the city. The church is on St Cross Road at the junction with Manor Road, just south of Holywell Manor. Also close by is Holywell Cemetery.

St Cross Church was once a dependent chapelry of St Peter-in-the-East on Queen's Lane, north of the High Street in central Oxford. The precise date of the church's foundation is not known, but it has been suggested that the St Cross was first built around AD 890 by St Grimwald.

The chancel arch is late 11th or early 12th century and the nave was built in about 1160. The tower and aisles were added in the 13th century, the upper stage of the tower was rebuilt in 1464 and the north arcade and aisle were rebuilt in the middle of the 15th century. A few of the windows are original Perpendicular Gothic; the remainder are Victorian Gothic Revival.

The aisles were rebuilt again in the 19th century — the north (except for its west end) in 1839 and the south in 1843 — the latter to designs by the architect JM Derick. In 1876 the north aisle was extended by the addition of an organ chamber and vestry designed by HJ Tollit. In 1893 the church was restored under the direction of EP Warren, including the addition of new clerestory windows. The tower was repaired in 1908.

GE Street designed the west window of the north aisle, which was made in 1855. However, since then the window has been moved and, in Sir Nikolaus Pevsner's opinion, "garbled".Hardman & Co. made the east window of the chancel in 1874. St Cross church is a Grade I listed building.