Holy Cross Church, Woodchurch

Holy Cross Church stands in Woodchurch, a suburb of Birkenhead on the Wirral peninsula. It is an active Anglican parish church built mainly of stone, with slate roofs and copper-covered additions. The church has a nave with north and south aisles, a chancel, vestry and south porch, and a tall two-stage tower with massive stepped buttresses. A square stair turret is attached to the tower’s southeast corner, and its top is embattled. The circular graveyard suggests an early origin, possibly Saxon or Romano-British, before the Normans. The church’s fabric includes parts from the 12th century, with the nave retaining Norman work. A fragment of an Anglo-Saxon wheel cross was found in the grounds in the late 19th or early 20th century and built into the chancel wall. The south aisle and tower were added in the 14th century, with later additions in the 16th, 17th and 20th centuries. The north aisle was added in 1964–65 by Hubert Worthington. Inside, the chancel holds three 17th-century wooden epitaph panels painted by Randle Holme, and 15th-century carved bench ends. Visitors find medieval encaustic tiles in the floor, a late 15th-century octagonal font with angel carvings, and a rood screen designed by Bernard A. Miller and carved by Alan Durst in 1934. The church contains stained glass by Kempe, including a damaged Jesse window restored after a wartime bomb strike. There is a ring of eight bells cast in 1971 and an electronic organ installed in 1938 and rebuilt in 1997. The charity board dates from 1741, and old bread shelves from 1641 and 1670 remain on the west wall.