Church Of St Helen

The Church of St Helen is a parish church largely dating to the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, with a chancel rebuilt in 1867 by G. E. Street and a tower rebuilt between 1881 and 1884. It is constructed of squared greenstone rubble with limestone ashlar dressings, squared limestone rubble, red brick patching, slate and leaded roofs. The church comprises a tall western tower, a clerestoried nave with aisles, a chancel, a vestry, and a south porch.

The tower, rebuilt in the late 19th century, features corner stepped buttresses, a gabled top, a moulded plinth, string courses, and an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles. The belfry stage has three louvred openings with ogee heads to the lights, panel tracery, and fleurons. The pointed west doorway is hood-moulded, above which stands a four-light window with panel tracery, flanked by reset shields. An ogee-headed niche and shield are also present above the doorway. The north aisle has a lead roof with extensive brick patching, containing a 2-light 19th-century window and a three-light 19th-century window with a flat head, along with three 2-light 19th-century windows set within semi-circular headed brick openings. The nave's clerestory features five two-light pointed windows, one retaining original late 14th-century ogee-headed tracery. The limestone chancel, rebuilt in 1867 by Street, boasts a stepped triple lancet at its east end, with trefoil heads. The south side contains a two-light 19th-century plate traceried window. The south aisle, also with brick patching, has a 15th-century three-light window with a segmental head and mouchettes in the east end, and three leaded lights within earlier 15th-century segmental-headed openings. The clerestory mirrors the north side with five plain lights.

The gabled limestone ashlar south porch, dating to the 15th century, features angle buttresses, a parapet, a fleuron string course, and oversized gargoyles. It has a tall pointed outer arch with double hollow chamfers and inside contains three cells of rib vault supported by angel corbels, a 15th-century inner doorway with a moulded and hollow-chamfered arch with fleurons and heads in the inner order, and a 15th-century wooden door. Inside the church are five bays of 14th-century nave arcades with double-chamfered arches and decorated capitals featuring foliage, animals, monsters, dragons, and heads. The western impost of the north aisle has 13th-century stiff leaf carving. A 19th-century tower arch has a deeply moulded pointed arch and small responds. A stoup on the south wall is adorned with a small animal head in its basin. The wide, double-chamfered chancel arch has 13th-century keeled responds and 14th-century capitals carved with heads, with a 19th-century arch above. The 19th-century chancel includes a pointed doorway to the vestry, an aumbry with a trefoil head and roundel decoration, double sedilia, a piscina, and a rear arch to the east window featuring shafted reveals and blank sexfoils between the lights. Fittings include a 19th-century reredos with a stone corbelled shelf, a 19th-century stone chancel screen, and an octagonal 19th-century font with traceried side panels.