Church Of St Helen

Church of Saint Helen, Welton Cowgate

A church of 15th-century origins, substantially rebuilt in the geometrical style by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1862–3, though incorporating some older materials from its earlier phases. The building is constructed in small coursed oolitic limestone rubble with freestone dressings and graduated slate roofs.

The plan comprises a 3-bay aisled nave with a south porch, a central tower with north and south transepts, and a 3-bay chancel with a north vestry.

The nave features a low chamfered plinth and two sets of paired 2-light pointed windows with geometrical tracery beneath hoodmoulds decorated with foliage-stops to the west and face-stops to the east. The pointed south door has three orders: the inner with continuous moulding, the outer two on nook-shafts, all beneath a hoodmould with foliage-stops. A plain coped parapet runs along the top.

The south porch is distinguished by massive buttresses flanking a pointed opening of two orders on nook-shafts. Its hoodmould bears a bishop-stop to the west and an actress-stop to the east. It is topped with a raised coped gable and a Celtic cross finial.

The west end has angle buttresses. The central west door has three orders—the inner a filleted roll, the outer two similar filleted rolls on nook-shafts—all beneath a hoodmould with monarch-stops. Flanking buttresses with offsets and spurred gablets flank it. A 4-light west window with geometrical tracery sits beneath a hoodmould with foliage-stops. Aisle windows are 2-light openings with geometrical tracery under similar hoodmoulds. A raised coped gable with cross finial crowns this elevation.

The north aisle has buttresses with offsets and three 3-light windows with 4-centred arches and Perpendicular tracery beneath hoodmoulds.

The south transept displays angle buttresses with squared offset and a pointed 3-light south window with geometrical tracery under a hoodmould. A smaller similar 2-light window lights the east wall. The north transept has comparable fenestration.

The chancel has buttresses with offsets and diagonal buttresses. Three 2-light windows light it: two to the east with cusped ogee tracery, and one to the west with cinquefoil heads mirrored upside-down in the upper section of the lights.

The central tower rises from angle buttresses and contains small oblong windows to the ringing chamber, with a string-course marking the belfry stage. Two-light pointed belfry openings with plate tracery sit beneath hoodmoulds with face-stops. The tower is crowned with a bracketed, coped parapet.

Interior: The north arcade comprises three pointed double-chamfered arches on octagonal abaci and piers, with the east respond and pier of 15th-century date, the remainder by Scott. The south arcade has three pointed moulded orders on cylindrical piers in the Transitional style.

The crossing-arches are of 15th-century date: pointed with double-hollow-chamfering, rising from moulded imposts and hollow-chamfered responds. A re-set medieval arch, formerly serving the north chancel chapel, is pointed and hollow-chamfered with a 12th-century scalloped capital to the east, a 19th-century stiff-leaf capital to the west, and keeled responds.

An original 13th-century lancet window lights the chancel north wall. In the south-east corner of the chancel stands a 15th-century piscina: a short column supports a basin beneath a 4-centred canopy, the whole beneath a brattished parapet.

At the west end of the south aisle is a late 12th or early 13th-century effigy of a cross-legged knight in chain mail.

The church contains a significant group of windows by Morris and Burne-Jones, commissioned and paid for by a local family connected by marriage to William Morris. There is also a striking window by Capronnier.