Church Of St Helen

SJ 67 SE NORTHWICH C.P CHURCH ROAD SOUTH (South-West Side)

5/32 Church of St. Helen (Witton Church)

24.3.50.

GV I

Church, C14 origin, enlarged late C15/early C16, restored C19. Red sandstone with flattish roofs concealed by parapets. West tower, 5-bay aisled nave with south porch, 2-bay chancel with canted apse, south chapel, north vestry and sacristy of 2 storeys. Crenellated 4-stage tower has diagonal buttresses, west door, basket-arched panel-traceried 4-light west window, 2-light bellringers' windows on north and south faces, empty niche on west face, clock with faces to all sides, paired panel-traceried 2-light bell openings, band carved with foliage, faces and beasts at belfry floor and, simpler, above west window and below bellringers' windows; gargoyles; carved to each side of south bellringers' window in restored raised letters THOMAS:HUNTER. 4, 5 and 6-light panel-traceried windows to aisles and clerestorey. Crenellated south porch with replaced pair of oak doors in basket-arched opening, square-headed window in each side and diagonal buttresses. 5-light east window to south chapel in canted niche, the reveals carved with quatrefoils and with 5 panels of blank tracery below. 5-light apse windows transitional between Curvilinear and Perpendicular. C19 organ-chamber, vestry and sacristy north of chancel. Interior: Basket tower arch with no capitals. Aisle arcades have piers with coved corners and responds to all faces, with bell capitals. Pier of former, lower, chancel arch with vertical joint in stonework above, at junction of nave with south chapel and (north) with organ chamber. Fine continuous camber-beam-and-panel oak roof to nave and chancel, with diagonal cross-braces; large carved bosses at junctions of main beams and smaller ones at junctions of secondary beams. Framed royal arms on south wall of tower; clock 1888 given by vicar as memorial to his father Hibbert Binney DD Bishop of Nova Scotia 1851-1887; 8 bells recast and clock chimes improved 1909 (Canon Binney's jubilee as vicar). Late C19 glass, biblical scenes vigorously expressed. Furnishings late C19 or later.

With St Mary's Nantwich and St Michael's, Middlewich, one of the 3 major medieval salt town churches in Cheshire.

Listing NGR: SJ6643573806