Parish Church Of St Helen

Parish Church of St Helen, Ashby de la Zouch

The parish church of St Helen is an ambitious town church occupying an important location close to Ashby Castle. It has a 14th-century core in the nave and chancel, which was substantially enlarged from 1474 at the expense of William, Lord Hastings, creating a late medieval church of considerable ambition. The church was further enlarged and restored between 1878 and 1880 by the London architect J.P. St Aubyn, with contractor G.H. Lilley at a cost of £16,000. The nave roof was repaired in 1912 by A.R. Powys, working with SPAB.

The church is built of coursed sandstone with 19th-century tooled masonry, tile and lead roofs. Its plan comprises a nave with double aisles, a west tower, a lower chancel with a north chapel and south transeptal chapel. The double aisles make the church wider than it is long.

The four-stage Perpendicular tower has diagonal buttresses with gabled offsets. The parapet is embattled with corner pinnacles, added in 1886. The four-centred west doorway has carved spandrels and a moulded surround with shields and hood mould. The four-light transomed west window has a steeply pointed arch. The second stage contains cusped windows. In the third stage is a large sundial with an iron gnomon and painted but faded numerals, and a north clock face. The upper stage has only single-light bell openings with louvres. The nave has two-light square-headed clerestorey windows, although these are not visible externally. The 19th-century outer aisles have diagonal buttresses, blind tracery to embattled parapets, and three-light and four-light Perpendicular windows. In the westernmost bay of each aisle is a doorway with crocketed ogee hood mould. The chancel has diagonal buttresses, a coped gable with pinnacles, and Perpendicular five-light east and three-light south windows with intersecting tracery. The south chapel, with embattled parapet, has a five-light east window and three-light south window. The north chapel, now serving as vestry and organ chamber, has an embattled parapet similar to the aisles. Its near full-height five-light cambered east window is transomed and blocked in the lower part of the upper main lights.

Internally, the nave, chancel arch and arch to the south chapel have octagonal piers and polygonal responds of 14th-century type, but embellished with panelled tracery and brattished capitals suggesting late 15th-century remodelling. The tower arch has similar capitals. Beneath the tower is a star vault. The shallow six-bay tie-beam nave roof has moulded timbers on shield corbels and incorporates three large foliage bosses. The lean-to roofs of the inner aisles have moulded timbers; the south roof is medieval while the north roof has brackets, one dated 1626. The south aisle retains an ogee-headed piscina. The outer aisles have four-bay arcades with octagonal piers. The chancel has a 19th-century five-bay arched-brace roof on angel corbels. In the south wall are trefoil-headed sedilia and an ogee-headed piscina. The south chapel retains the cambered tie beams of its medieval roof, although the remainder of the timber was replaced in 1963 to 1964. The outer aisles have plastered walls and a continuous sill band. The remaining walls have been stripped of plaster. Floors are 1970s stone paving, with wood floors below the pews.

The principal fixtures include a Baroque wooden reredos dated 1679 but restored in 1880, featuring Ionic pilasters and a broken segmental pediment with achievement framing a central panel with swags. A pair of alabaster font and pulpit were designed by Thomas Earp in 1880. The pulpit is round with blind arcading on marble shafts. The font has an octagonal bowl with quatrefoils framing various symbols including IHS, a crown and six-pointed star, on a stem with detached marble shafts. A second Perpendicular-style font has a panelled stem and octagonal bowl with pointed quatrefoils. The nave benches have notional arm rests, while the choir stalls are similar but richer, with blind-tracery frontals. A wrought iron screen in Baroque style crosses the south chapel arch, having been moved from the chancel. A carved and painted Carolean Royal Arms is set in the nave west wall.

The church retains an outstanding collection of funeral monuments spanning the 15th to 18th centuries, predominantly to members of the Hastings and Huntingdon families, together with seven family hatchments. An alabaster chest tomb in the south chapel commemorates Francis, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon (died 1561) and his wife, featuring two alabaster effigies on a tomb chest with shields and weepers. It was 'restored' in 1698 by the 6th Earl when placed against the wall beneath a mural monument with armorial bearings, and was moved back to the centre of the chapel after 1837. A standing wall monument to the 9th Earl of Huntingdon (died 1746) was designed by William Kent and carved by Joseph Pickford, incorporating a demi-figure of his widow, Selina Countess of Huntingdon, by Michael Rysbrack. An incised alabaster grave slab with incised effigies in the nave west wall commemorates Robert Mundy (died 1526) and his two wives. The earliest monument is a 15th-century effigy of a pilgrim in a cusped recess in the north chapel. A 1914 to 1918 war memorial reredos in the south aisle incorporates a figure of Mary in a niche.

The earliest stained glass comprises German, Swiss and Flemish roundels said to have been brought from Farleigh Hungerford in Somerset. A series of windows by Lavers, Barraud and Westlake provides consistency to the late 19th-century glass.

The church retains a rare wooden finger pillory, a device in which offenders could be detained in full public view, considered less degrading than the stocks.

The churchyard contains a war memorial and entrance gate piers of rusticated masonry with later gates.