Church of the Holy Cross

Little is known about the original church at the site, but it was probably there by the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066. In around 1108, a small Cluniac priory was founded at Daventry, alongside the parish church. The priory was closed in 1526 by Cardinal Wolsey who granted its assets to Christ Church, Oxford. The present church was built between 1752 and 1758 by William Hiorne and his brother David, who were architects and builders based in Warwick. It was built at a cost of £3,468 () raised by public subscription, to replace the previous church at the site which had decayed to the point where it was no longer safe. The design of the church was said to have been modelled on St Giles in…

It is constructed of the local ironstone. The western elevation is broad with large pilasters at the angles and the angles of the centre bay. The entrance porch was added in 1951. The tower rises from the centre bay and is square ending with an obelisk spire rising above. Inside, the church has three wooden galleried aisles, to the north, south and west elevations. The pulpit is decorated with marquetry and fretwork and has a staircase with twisted balusters. Above the altar at the eastern elevation is a three-bayed Venetian stained glass window. There is heraldic glass in the two upper west windows. There are C18 and C19 grey and white marble wall monuments in the chancel, finely carved…

Some time after 1550 a new Gothic church was erected, and in 1700 Bridges records the inscriptions of the five bells then hanging in the tower, some of which bore the name of the Watts foundry of Leicester. They are also shown by North in his Church Bells of Northamptonshire (1877). In 1738, these five, together with three other bells formerly hanging in the tower of Catesby Priory, were recast by Thomas Eayre, of Kettering, into a fine ring of eight with a 16+ cwt. tenor. They were rehung in the new tower in 1754, and with the exception of the 6th, which was recast by Joseph Eayre at St. Neots in 1764, they survived intact until 1908, when the tenor, having become badly cracked, was recast…