Holy Cross Church Binstead
Description from the 1898 Kelly’s Directory of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight:
The church of the Holy Cross, rebuilt in 1844, is an edifice of stone in the Early Decorated style, consisting of chancel, nave of five bays, and a north aisle, added in 1876, with vestry, south porch and an open western turret containing one bell: the chancel is now the only remaining portion of the ancient fabric, and the east wall retains several portions of herring-bone work; on the south side, under a depressed arch, is a low side window, square-headed, opened in 1884, and the east and west lancet windows and four others are stained, all being memorials: in the north aisle is a mural brass to Alleyne Cox Yard, who died in Baluchistan, 22 July 1886; and by the chancel arch is a monument to the Rev Philip Hewett MA, 46 years vicar here: there are 240 sittings.
In the churchyard is a tombstone carved with the representation of a boat in chase of a sloop, and an inscription to Thomas Sivell, a smuggler, who was cruelly shot on board his sloop by the Customs officers of Portsmouth, 15 June 1785; there is also an altar tomb to James Goodlad, parson, and Sarah his wife, (1620); the south-east entrance to the churchyard, next the lane from Ryde, consists of a Norman doorway, formerly the north entrance to the church, above which is a grotesque squatting figure.
The register dates from the year 1710. The living is a rectory, net yearly income £90, with 5 acres of glebe, and residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Winchester, and held since 1897 by the Rev Silvanus Key Borton MA, of King’s College, Cambridge.