Church Of Holy Cross And Saint Helen

The Church of Holy Cross and Saint Helen is a Catholic church built between 1860 and 1862, designed by J. J. Scoles. It features rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings and a slate roof. The church has a single vessel nave and chancel with aisles under lean-to roofs, transepts, and side chapels, all also under lean-to roofs, along with a north porch. The 8-bay nave contains 3-light windows with curvilinear tracery, while the clerestory windows have segmental pointed heads. The aisle windows are situated between weathered buttresses. The west end, which is the ritual west but actual east, has a 5-light window above a small entrance, with a spherical triangle window above that. The transepts feature 4-light windows with rose windows above them, and the chancel has a rose window with blind lights below. Some of the tracery heads on the south side of the church have been repaired.

Inside, the church has 8-bay arcades supported by slender octagonal piers, with corbelled statues of apostles in the spandrels. The ceiling is flat with moulded beams. The end bay of the nave is enclosed, and the first bay of the arcade has a gallery with a 20th-century screen below and to the sides. The timber chancel arch is adorned with a rood and pierced with tracery, and there is a continuous alabaster altar rail. Timber parclose screens separate the chapels, which feature elaborate reredoses. The Sacred Heart chapel in the north transept has an elaborate screen, with an entrance flanked by arcading on paired marble piers, wrought iron gates, and a rich reredos with blind arcading and pinnacles on the north and west walls.