Church of the Holy Cross, Crediton

The Church of the Holy Cross — formally the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross and the Mother of Him Who Hung Thereon — is the parish church of Crediton in Devon, and few parish churches in England carry a grander pedigree: it stands on the site of the cathedral of the Bishops of Crediton, the see for Devon and Cornwall, and its history is as long as that of any church in Devon, Exeter Cathedral included. Crediton is firmly established as the birthplace of St Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and the Grade I listed church remains, uniquely, the property of the town: bought from Henry VIII in 1547, it is still owned and administered by the twelve Governors of the Crediton Church Corporation.

In the early tenth century Crediton was chosen as the cathedral site for Devon and Cornwall, and a cathedral was built there about 910 AD by Eadwulf of Crediton. In 1046 Leofric was appointed to both sees, and in 1050 the cathedra — the bishop's throne — was moved to Exeter, where it stood in a Saxon minster for many years before a purpose-built cathedral rose. Crediton lost the see but not its importance: the Bishop of Exeter kept his palace just north-east of Holy Cross and his lands around the town, and a collegiate church was established on the model of the old cathedral, initially staffed by eighteen canons with eighteen vicars, soon reduced by lack of funds to twelve. Building of a Norman church on the present site was in progress in the 1130s. The college was always entirely secular — none of its canons or vicars lived the communal life of monks, their work funded by tithes on the parish's extensive lands, shared with the bishop. The early dedication was to St Mary; the present resonant dedication came into use only after the 1230s, and the late thirteenth century added the Lady Chapel and Chapter House.

Two figures tower over the medieval story. John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter from 1327 to 1369, tried to ensure the college's chief officers, the precentor and treasurer, lived near the church — and, more lastingly, introduced or revived the cult of St Boniface, firmly establishing Crediton as the great missionary's birthplace; a new statue of Boniface by the sculptor Witold Gracjan Kawalec was created in the 1970s. Then, in the early fifteenth century, with the Norman nave "now nearly levelled to the ground" according to a medieval will, the bequests of that testator and others funded a complete Perpendicular Gothic rebuilding of the nave and chancel — creating a church impressive in scale, if architecturally fairly modest, whose grandeur nonetheless fooled at least one traveller: as the old Devonshire saying has it, "That's Exter, as the old woman said when she saw Kerton" — the woman walking to Exeter for the first time who saw Crediton's great church, declared her journey over, and still had eight miles to go.

The Reformation brought the church's most remarkable turn. The collegiate churches were dissolved between 1545 and 1549, Crediton's surrendered to Henry VIII in May 1545 and threatened with demolition — whereupon the parishioners negotiated with the Crown to buy their church, completing the purchase in spring 1547 for £200. In April 1547 Edward VI signed a charter creating a corporation of twelve governors to administer the church and its endowments, with a vicar of Crediton and two chaplains, one ministering to the adjoining parish of Sandford. That arrangement survives intact: the twelve governors, now a registered charity, still own and administer the buildings, a form of governance shared by only two other parish churches in England — Ottery St Mary in Devon and Wimborne Minster in Dorset. The church is held in trust for the people of the parish, its life and worship planned by the clergy and parochial church council.

The monuments repay attention. On the north side of the chancel is the effigy monument of Sir William Peryam (1534–1604) of Little Fulford, now Shobrooke Park, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, with the adjacent Tuckfield Monument bearing the seated effigy of Elizabeth Tuckfield (1593–1630), whose family inherited Little Fulford from Peryam's descendants. At the east end of the south choir aisle lie the effigies of Sir John de Sully — a knight whose dates are given as 1282 to 1388, a span of 106 years — and his wife Isobel; lord of the manor of Iddesleigh, he was said to have had his seat at Ruxford in Sandford parish, held of John de Raleigh as a deed of 1362 attests. A heraldic window of about 1924 in the south transept, bequeathed by the vicar W. M. Smith-Dorrien, displays the arms of the parish's historic families, and on the west side of the tower arch is the memorial to General Sir Redvers Buller VC (1839–1908) of Downes House, lord of the manor of Crediton and the Victoria Cross hero whose statue stands in Exeter.

The organ carries its own war story. The War Memorial Organ was designed from plans drawn in 1915 by the church's organist, Harold Organ — splendidly named for his calling — who was killed in action in 1917; his plans were carried forward by Cyril Church, and the instrument, built by Harrison & Harrison of Durham, was first used in 1921, restored and recased in 2001.

Today Holy Cross leads a united benefice that includes St Lawrence's Chapel in Crediton, St Swithin's at Shobrooke, St Swithun's at Sandford, the Beacon Church at New Buildings, St Mary the Virgin at Upton Hellions, Holy Trinity at Yeoford and St Luke's and St Francis' at Posbury. The pattern of worship is rich and full: Sunday brings Book of Common Prayer Holy Communion at 8 am, the Parish Eucharist at 9.30 and a rotating 6 pm sequence of Choral Evensong, Sung Evensong at St Lawrence's, the reflective "Sacred Space", Sung Compline and Taizé Vespers, with daily prayer and communion services from Tuesday through Friday. Eleven centuries after Eadwulf raised his Saxon cathedral, the people of Crediton still worship in — and still own — the church of Boniface's town.