St Cross Church
A Grade I-listed Norman parish church on St Cross Road, closed in October 2008 and reopened in 2011 as Balliol College's Historic Collections Centre — and the church where, in fiction, Lord Peter Wimsey married Harriet Vane.
Holywell Cemetery is behind the church and is the more visit-able of the two — the composer Sir John Stainer (church warden here while Professor of Music at Magdalen) is buried there, alongside Charles Williams, John Knibb and the Snell Exhibition founder Sir John Snell. The church itself is now a library and not open to general visitors; the chancel is maintained for occasional services under Balliol’s 999-year lease.
St Cross is a former parish church on St Cross Road at the junction with Manor Road. It is a Grade I listed building. Since 2011 it has housed Balliol College's Historic Collections Centre, but it has not been deconsecrated — under the terms of the College's 999-year lease, the chancel is maintained for occasional services.
A Norman parish church
St Cross was originally a dependent chapelry of St Peter-in-the-East on Queen's Lane. The chancel arch is late 11th or early 12th century and the nave was built around 1160. The tower and aisles were added in the 13th century, and the upper stage of the tower was rebuilt in 1464.
Closure and conversion
Services were held once weekly until 12 October 2008, when the church was closed. The conversion to a Historic Collections Centre for Balliol College cost an estimated £3.3 million and opened in 2011.
Holywell Cemetery and the literary connection
Holywell Cemetery, behind the church, contains the grave of Sir John Stainer (1840 to 1901), the composer who — while Professor of Music at Magdalen — was church warden at St Cross.
In Dorothy L. Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon, Lord Peter Wimsey married Harriet Vane in St Cross on 8 October 1935.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
