The present church consists of the nave, side aisles, and western tower of the Abbey church, and owes its escape to the circumstance of the western end having always been used as the church of the parish of Holy Cross, the name it still retains.
The west front is composed of the tower, flanked by the ends of the Norman side aisles, and has a bold appearance. The tower is broad and massive; the basement early Norman, surmounted by a well-proportioned superstructure of the 14th century. The portal is a deeply recessed round-headed arch, having a pointed doorway inserted within it; to preserve uniformity, the exterior rib of the outward round arch springs on each side from a Norman shaft with an indented capital, and the combination displays much skill and ingenuity.
Above this is one of the most magnificent windows in the kingdom, 46 feet high by 23 feet wide; the intrado of the arch is enriched by a series of small trefoil panels; the label rises high above it in the ogee form, richly crocketed and terminated in a finial. The window is in the decorated style, and divided horizontally by transoms, and perpendicularly by six mullions, into seven compartments for the glass, the lower division having blank panels which have never been pierced for glazing. The arched head is gracefully pointed and filled with a profusion of the most rich and delicate tracery.
On each side of the window are the remains of a canopied niche, which once contained statues, probably of Saint Peter and St. Paul, the tutelar saints of the Abbey.
The north and south-west angles of the tower are flanked by shelving buttresses, having their sets-off worked into pedimented weatherings. The bell chamber has two windows on each side, between those of the western front is an elegant canopied niche containing the statue of an armed knight, bearing in one hand a mutilated sword, the other appears to have once projected from the body, but is now broken. The figure has a conical basinet, encircled by a crown, fastened to a camail of mail, which covers the neck, shoulders, and breast to the hips, and is finished by an emblazoned jupon. The thighs and legs are encased in plate armour. This statue is supposed to represent Edward the Third, in whose reign the tower was probably built.
On the north side of the church is a lofty and handsome porch, the entrance to which is under a pointed arch resting on round columns, and peculiarly recessed within a square aperture charged with shields; above is a chamber (formerly in two stories) lighted by small mullioned windows whose arches are nearly flat. On each side are niches, in one of which is the remains of a figure. The ceiling of the porch is cylindrical, without ornament, and the interior doorway a plain semi-circular arch with round mouldings.
The exterior of the side aisles displays a series of modern gables, each of which contains a mullioned window. The eastern end of the church is finished by a wall run up between the remains of the two western piers that supported a central tower, in which a pointed window is inserted. This, however, will soon be removed, and three elegant Norman lights substituted by private munificence.
On the south side the gables are at present miserably repaired with brickwork, but it is to be hoped that ere long the public spirit and good taste of the town will be exercised in such a manner as to assist the parishioners in the proper restoration of this side of the church, which presents so striking a feature from the new line of the London road.
The south aisle is entered by a plain Norman arch, resting on slender shafts, and which once communicated with the western wing of the cloister; the approach from the opposite eastern wing was by a pointed doorway; adjoining this is the ruined wall of the transept, in which are two round arches, supposed to have formed portions of a side aisle, or small chantry chapel west of the transept.