Church Of St Helen

Church of St Helen

This is a parish church built over several centuries from the 14th century onwards, with significant work in the 15th century and a major restoration carried out in 1892 by James Fowler. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with slate and lead roofs.

The Church comprises a western tower, a clerestoried nave, a chancel, and a south chantry chapel. The tower is a substantial 3-stage structure dating to the 15th century, with a plinth, moulded string courses and a parapet. It has stepped corner buttresses decorated with grotesques. The belfry openings on the top stage consist of 3 lights in a hollow chamfered surround with a transom of 4-centred arched heads. The west doorway is continuously moulded, and there is a 15th-century 4-light window with cusped heads and panel tracery.

The north aisle dates to the 14th century and contains a 15th-century west window of 3 lights, recut in the 19th century. A continuously moulded north doorway is flanked by single 14th-century 3-light windows in moulded rectangular surrounds with ogee heads. To the east are a similar window recut to 2 lights in the 19th century and a 3-light window with a triangular head. The east window of the chancel is 15th-century work with cusped ogees and panel tracery. The clerestory, added in 1892, contains 5 two-light windows designed in 14th-century style.

The chancel is highly ornate work of the late 14th century, featuring a plinth, a decorative corbel table of beasts and fleurons, a moulded parapet, and stepped buttresses with crocketed and traceried gables adorned with projecting beasts and figures. On the north side are 3 three-light windows with cusped ogees to the heads and panel tracery. At the east end are crocketed pinnacles, a cross fleury, and a fleuron gable cornice. The east window is a 19th-century 5-light design set in a 14th-century moulded surround. The south side similarly has 3 three-light windows, the westernmost and central ones featuring ogee heads. Below the central window is a continuously moulded priest's doorway, and beneath the westernmost window is a chantry extension with a plinth, deeply moulded parapet, decorated buttresses and pinnacles. The chantry ends contain single 2-light windows with moulded surrounds and 19th-century tracery, and the south side has 2 15th-century 2-light windows with cusped lights, rectangular moulded surrounds and hoods.

The south aisle is 14th-century work. Its east window is 19th-century reticulated tracery within an earlier moulded surround. On the south side are 4 three-light 14th-century windows with ogee heads, moulded rectangular surrounds and hoods. A continuously and deeply moulded doorway is set within a gabled projection.

The interior reveals a 5-bay 14th-century arcade with double moulded arches, quatrefoil filleted piers and responds with annular capitals. The tower arch is a tall, continuously moulded hollow chamfered structure of the 15th century. The chancel arch is a wide late 14th-century design with hollow chamfered reveals and arch. In the south aisle is a pointed-headed piscina. At the east end of the nave, the rood loft doorways and turning stair are preserved. A trefoil-headed niche at low level survives in the north aisle. In the chancel south wall, a continuously moulded round-headed doorway with human head stops to the hood mould provides access to the chantry, and incorporates a 14th-century door and closing wing.

The sedilia are outstanding 14th-century work, featuring cusped and crocketed ogee heads with leaf terminals and pinnacles, supported by delicate bossed vaults. A corbelled and brattished cornice with fleurons and heads tops a coved base. The rear wall contains a rectangular opening to the chantry. Beyond this is a pointed and cusped arch that contains a piscina and further opening to the chantry; both openings have rear arches within the chapel. The later chantry roof is supported on fine figured corbels.

The chancel screen is a 14th-century work of 5 bays with traceried panels and cusped ogee lights with ogee panel tracery. The pulpit and pews are 19th-century additions. At the west end of the nave hangs a Royal Coat of Arms to William IV dated 1832. The font is a fine late 14th-century octagonal piece with tail-trefoiled panels and a quatrefoil frieze to the rim, matched by the stem and bell-moulded base resting on 3 octagonal steps.