Church of St Helen

Church of St Helen

A parish church of multiple periods, primarily 13th and 14th century with later modifications. The building is constructed of squared limestone rubble with chalk and limestone coursed rubble, roofed in slate. It comprises a western tower, nave, chancel, north aisle, and south porch. The church was substantially altered in 1732 and underwent restoration in 1903.

The western tower rises in three stages with stepped clasping buttresses and chamfered string courses. It carries an embattled parapet with eight crocketed pinnacles. A 13th-century lancet appears on the south side in the middle stage, while paired pointed belfry lights with single chamfered surrounds face in four directions. A 20th-century lancet has been inserted in the west wall.

The north aisle, separately roofed and built in coursed limestone and chalk rubble, has a late 13th-century west window with Y tracery. Above this sits a 16th-century embossed terracotta tile. The north wall contains two 14th-century windows of three lights with mouchettes, a recut late 13th-century window with intersecting tracery, and a blocked doorway more clearly visible from inside. The east wall of the aisle has a window matching the western example. In the chancel east wall is a 20th-century window of three lights with cusped heads and central septofoil. The chancel's south wall displays two single and one paired lancet, all 13th-century in date, together with a planked door having a brick surround probably dating from 1732. Two tall 20th-century windows with cusped three-light heads have been inserted in the blocking of the south nave arcade.

The gabled south porch features continuously moulded chamfered outer and inner arches, the latter dying into its reveals. Above is a rectangular plaque inscribed with the initials TH in 16th-century script. The reset inner doorway is late 13th-century, with paired angle shafts to the reveals, moulded imposts and a hood.

The interior displays early 13th-century arcades of three bays on both north and south sides. The north arcade has annular piers and capitals with double chamfered arches. The south arcade, now blocked, originally contained clustered quatrefoil keeled piers with moulded capitals and double chamfered arches. Both the tower and chancel arches spring from octagonal corbels and have double chamfered arches. The tower arch carries a hood with ammonite stops, while the chancel arch has human heads beneath its corbels. A 18th-century wreathed plaque is positioned high in the north aisle's east end. In the chancel north wall, a single chamfered arch with octagonal corbels opens into a former north chapel. A small reset 13th-century capital decorated with foliage and hobnail detail also appears in the north wall. The south wall contains a trefoil-headed 13th-century piscina and, positioned high up, a fragment of a 12th-century voussoir comprising two fine orders of chevron moulding.

The fittings are predominantly 19th and 20th-century, with the exception of a set of early 16th-century bench ends bearing initials, presumably those of church wardens' families. The font is a 12th-century circular tub with a short run of billet moulding in the lower band, standing on a splayed octagonal base.

Among the monuments is a 10th-century gravemarker fragment at the west end of the nave, decorated with figure-of-8 intertwining knots and cable moulding round the edges. Two stones flanking the chancel arch record the church's restoration in 1732. Three figure panels of 15th-century stained glass have been reset in an aisle window. A further 10th-century grave marker fragment at the west end displays a triple pattern of double knot motifs with an outer border of cable moulding, all in low relief.