Church Of St Hild And St Helen

NZ 44 NW SEAHAM MOUNT STEWART STREET (South side)

4/32 Church of St. Hild and 21.6.50 St. Helen (Formerly listed as II Church, of St. Hilda and St. Helen)

Large parish church. 1912 by W.H. Wood. Orange-red industrial brick in English garden wall bond; moderate-pitch green slate roofs.Basilican plan with altar orientated towards south; aisled nave, narthex, Lady Chapel to ritual north of altar and Choir and Vicar's vestries to south. Italian Romanesque style with round-arched openings and Lombard frieze below eaves and gables of nave.

Ritual west end; low projecting narthex with entrances in left and right returns; flanking aisles with lean-to roofs; gabled nave has 4 pilaster buttresses and central rose window. 8-bay aisles, defined by stepped buttresses,have single lancets above sill band; clerestory has round windows in stepped reveals under continuous, chamfered hoodmould. Ritual east end: central semicircular apse; projecting single- storey Lady Chapel to right has smaller apse and 2-bay right return with 2 paired lancets and entrance porch; single-storey Choir vestry to left has 3 small lancets and canted corner with doorway to right. Gabled, 2-storey Vicar's vestry to rear of Choir vestry projects from nave and has square bellcote with louvred belfry, pyramidal roof and vane.

Interior: Baptistry in narthex has Romanesque-style font with cylindrical shaft and deeply carved bowl. Rose window above baptistry installed 1915 in memory of 6th Marquess of Londonderry. Arcade on square brick piers has 7 arches of 2 orders with a smaller arch towards baptistry. The two eastern bays form the chancel. Carved arches and pulpits at either side form part of projected choir side screens which were never completed (source: signed designs which are kept in the church). Clerestory has continuous hoodmould over windows. Aisles have brick transverse arches. Sanctuary and Lady Chapel have hemispherical domed apses. Organ loft to right defined by single tall arch breaking into clerestory. Roof has 7 trusses with arch-braced beams and arcading above.

Low area walls of brick with chamfered sandstone coping, plain cast-iron railings and 2 pairs of gate piers with scalloped pyramidal caps to north and east of church.

Listing NGR: NZ4295948284