Church Of St Helen

Church of St Helen

This is a 15th-century church with extensive 19th-century additions and alterations. The building was refaced by Crowther of Manchester in the 19th century and repaired in 1931-32 by Percy Worthington. It is constructed in red sandstone ashlar with a slate roof.

The church comprises a south-western tower of three stages, an aisled nave, a chancel, north-eastern and south-eastern chapels, a western vestry, and a south-western baptistry. The 19th-century refacing gives the nave, chancel, and tower a Decorated Gothic character, while only the north-eastern and south-eastern chapels retain Perpendicular features.

The south-western tower has angle buttresses with offsets and string courses between all stages. The south front displays a gabled projecting porch to the right with a hollow-chamfered pointed arch, hood-mould, and a cross at the gable apex with moulded coping. Inside the porch are oak double doors with E-shaped wrought iron hinges decorated with floral motifs. A diagonal staircase turret is set in the angle between the buttresses and tower body. A lancet window with hood-mould and label stops lights the second stage. Above this is a two-light louvred belfry opening with cusped fenestration and trefoils to the apex, with a hood-mould continuing around the tower as a band. A corbel table supports a parapet with gargoyles to the corners and blind encircled quatrefoils. A pyramidal spire rises above. The tower adjoins the church to the east and north at the lower stage level; the upper two stages mirror the southern face. The western face has a canted baptistry added in 1931-32 by Sir Percy Worthington. Above this is a three-light Geometrical window with cusped lights, sexfoils, and a cinquefoil to the apex. Higher up is a similar composition with a clock face above a lancet.

The nave south aisle has three bays to the right of the tower, each with two-light windows featuring cusped lights and an elongated quatrefoil to the apex, with hood-moulds and label stops. Buttresses between the bays have offsets and terminate in gablets. The north side has four similar bays, with a three-light window at the right having cusped intersecting tracery. Double doors to the left of the second window from the right have ornate wrought iron strap hinges decorated with foliage motifs, colonettes to the sides, a moulded arch, a hood-mould, and figurehead label stops.

The west end has the tower to the right and two gabled bays to its left of approximately equal height. A central four-light window features cusped lights and Geometrical encircled sexfoils with an octofoil to the apex, which has a quatrefoil at its hub. A three-light window to the north aisle has cusped lancets and Geometrical tracery to the apex. Both windows have hood-moulds and label stops.

The chancel has north-eastern and south-eastern chapels adjoining its side walls and projects eastward with a single bay featuring three-light windows to the north and south. The eastern window has five cusped lights with trefoils and encircled quatrefoils to the apex, with hood-mould and king and queen label stops. Diagonal buttresses to the corners have crocketed pinnacles above, and a cross surmounts the gable coping.

The south-eastern chapel's south wall has two bays flush with the nave aisle, each with a four-light Perpendicular window with panel tracery. Buttresses between have swept offsets. The eastern window has five lights with a cambered head. The north-eastern chapel's north side has three bays with Perpendicular windows of three cusped lights each. Its eastern end has a five-light window with panel tracery above.

Interior

The nave has arcades of four bays with octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches; those to the western arcade have slender faces to the angles. Windows have chamfered surrounds in the northern aisle and nave mouldings in the south. Three-bay arcades serve the chancel.

The nave and chancel roofs are of arched braces and principals. The south-eastern chapel has a panelled roof, while the north-eastern chapel has moulded arched braces with brattished collars and king posts above, with pierced panelling and a brattished rail before ashlar posts.

Fine wrought iron door furniture adorns the north-western and south-western double doors, which have serpents-head terminals to their door bolts. A wrought iron chancel screen features c-scrolls in rectangular compartments riveted to cross and side bars, with quatrefoils to the upper rail and a cresting of fleurs de lys. Italian 16th-century Siennese gates at the centre have fretwork panels and quatrefoils to the lower body, with adorsed and affronted S-scrolls and repoussé leaves to the top rail.

Mid-19th-century oak chancel seating features arcading to desk fronts and seat backs with cusped circular openings.

Monuments

A white marble Baroque monument commemorates Sir John Crewe of Utkinton, who died in 1711. It has a tomb-chest base with a slightly projecting centre and a gadrooned and fluted lip. A life-size figure in drapery and wig reclines on his side, his right arm resting on a bible and his left hand clenched in prayer. Weeping putti flank the figure with their heads covered by drapery, and two cherubs' heads with interlaced wings appear on the wall behind.

A monument in white and black marble commemorates Jane Done, who died in 1662, and her sister Mary Crewe, who died in 1690. A white marble chest with black marble top features a recumbent figure of Jane to the front, holding a bible in her left hand. Mary lies propped on her right elbow, her left hand resting on an open bible. At her feet is the figure of her granddaughter Mary Devereux Knightly, who died in 1674 at one year of age.