Church Of St Helen

Church of St Helen

Parish church of the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, with major restorations carried out in 1830, 1853 by Fowler, 1863 and 1881. The building is constructed in ashlar with some red brick, with slate roofs and coped gables bearing single ridge crosses to the east nave, east chancel and south porch. It comprises a buttressed tower, nave, aisles, south porch and chancel.

The 15th-century tower is angle-buttressed and set on a moulded plinth of four stages with bands. It has a brick parapet with single corner gargoyles. Single carved angels holding shields are positioned at the centre of the south, north and west sides. The west doorway is deeply moulded in the 15th-century style with hood mould and label stops. Above this is a single 15th-century arched four-light window with panel tracery, hood mould and label stops, and a single rectangular light over. Three small stair lights pierce the tower. The south and north sides each have a single large brick blocked chamfered archway with three corbels over. The south and east sides each have a single rectangular light at the third stage, with the south side also featuring two stair lights. Four arched 19th-century bell chamber openings are decorated with three arched and cusped lights, panel tracery, hood mould and label stops.

The north aisle, set on a plinth to west and north and patched with brick, contains in the west wall a single heavily restored 13th-century trefoil arched lancet. The north wall has a single 13th-century window with a pair of pointed arched lights surmounted by a single truncated roundel, followed by a chamfered pointed arched doorway with a 14th-century carved human head over, and further left a single 14th-century window with two ogee arched and elaborately cusped lights under a flat arch. The east wall of the north aisle has a single heavily restored 13th-century trefoil arched lancet.

The chancel, set on a plinth to the east and south, has in the east wall a single 19th-century arched three-light window with cusped tracery, hood mould, human head label stops and a continuous stepped sill band which extends to the south wall. The south wall features two 19th-century arched two-light windows with cusped tracery, hood mould and label stops.

The south aisle is set on a chamfered plinth. Its east wall has a single 19th-century arched two-light window with cusped tracery, hood mould and decorative label stops. The south wall contains two 19th-century arched two-light windows with cusped tracery, hood mould and decorative label stops. The gabled porch, rebuilt in the 19th century, has a 15th-century moulded arched entrance with hood mould and human head label stops, flanked by single carved angels holding shields. The inner doorway is a 19th-century moulded arch with hood mould and decorative label stops. To the left and in the west wall of the south aisle are single similar 19th-century windows with hood moulds and decorative label stops.

Interior

The four-bay nave arcades have double chamfered arches. The south side arcade, dating to the early 13th century, features octagonal columns and responds, with the two east columns and west respond decorated with nail head ornament to the capitals. A hood mould adorns the nave side. The late 13th-century north arcade has quatrefoil piers and responds with fillets and moulded capitals, with hood mould and human head label stops to the nave side. The tower arch is a tall 15th-century feature with double chamfered moulding.

The chancel arch is 19th century in date, chamfered and moulded, with the inner order supported on foreshortened colonnettes with moulded capitals, themselves resting on decorative corbels. The hood mould has angel label stops.

A 14th-century octagonal font survives, with the bowl decorated with quatrefoil panels. Several 15th-century bench ends remain, some with poppyheads and others carved with human heads. The church was re-roofed in the late 19th century.