Church Of St Helen

Church of St Helen

This is a parish church of the 12th to 19th centuries, built of coursed blue lias rubble with ashlar dressings, and roofed in Welsh slate and lead. The building comprises a west tower, nave with north and south aisles (the north aisle now converted to a parish room), chancel, and south porch.

The west tower rises in four stages, with a battlemented ashlar parapet and eight crocketed pinnacles. It has clasping buttresses with four setoffs on plinths, rising to the third stage, and string courses marking each stage. The second stage has a triple lancet window with intersecting tracery and a hood mould, while the bell stage contains four double lancet windows.

The south porch dates from the 15th century. It is a square-plan structure of coursed rubble with ashlar dressings, featuring two diagonal buttresses with three setoffs each, a plinth, moulded string course, upper string course, and a battlemented parapet with two humanistic gargoyles. The entrance is a four-centred arched doorway with rebate, roll and cove mouldings, and respond shafts topped with crenellated octagon capitals. Above the doorway is a niche containing a female figure. The roof is low-pitched and leaded, with chamfered tie beams; the northern beam is inscribed '1704 WP. RT.ID'. The south aisle is of 14th-century date with three bays, a string course, crenellated parapet, and a grotesque human head on its south-east corner. Its west window is of 16th-century date with a triangular head, two four-centred arched lights with cusps and panel tracery, and mask label stops. Two south windows of 15th-century date have four-centred arched openings with mask, animal and owl label stops, containing triple lancets with cusped heads. The east window is of 14th-century date, square-headed, with a triple lancet and Decorated tracery, and has been restored.

The north aisle, now the parish room, dates from the 14th century and has three bays with two 19th-century buttresses in the central bay. Its east window is a 14th-century square-headed triple lancet with Decorated tracery. Two north windows are square-headed with two lights, rebated and chamfered reveals, and a chamfered mullion; the western mullion is missing. A 14th-century doorway has a chamfered and roll-moulded surround and a moulded ogee head.

The nave clerestorey is notable for its alternating thick and thin ashlar courses and a string course with one gargoyle and grotesque faces on the east corners on both sides. It has a battlemented parapet with a central merlon bearing arms in a traceried panel. Three 15th-century triple lancets are set in either face.

The chancel is in Early English style, built of coursed rubble with a graduated slate roof. It comprises three bays, with three tall single lancets in chamfered reveals with plain hood moulds on the north and south sides. Two 19th-century lancets face east, and there is a coped gable with a cross.

The nave is divided into three bays. The north arcade contains two bays of elaborate Norman work with circular piers to the west and centre, both bearing leaf capitals; the eastern pier has a shallow scallop. The arches have two orders of coffered diaper work on face and soffit, plus zigzag, roll moulding, and a head in the central spandrel. The south arcade and the east bay of the north arcade date from the 13th century, with double-chamfered arches, label moulds, mask stops and rosettes. The west pier of the south arcade has four clustered filleted shafts on a square seat base and a moulded capital. The tower arch is 13th-century, double-chamfered, with a dogtooth band on respond capitals.

The interior contains an octagonal 17th-century font set on a 14th-century base of eight columns. The nave roof is 15th-century with cambered tie beams on curved brackets corbelled from corbels; one corbel is of timber with a rosette. The spandrels have quatrefoil piercings. The south aisle roof is 15th-century with carved bosses corbelled from the arcade.

The church holds ten medieval pews with lozenge finials, another similar pew in the base of the tower, two 18th-century commandment boards, a Charity table, and several 19th-century memorial tablets. A 17th-century communion table is also present. In the south-east corner is a square-headed aumbry and piscina in a chamfered surround. In the south-west corner stands a freestanding 15th-century polygonal piscina.

The chancel screen is in Decorated style with a central lancet opening flanked by lancets containing round-headed cusped lights with panel tracery. It has been much restored and altered. The chancel arch has roll moulding and responds with octagonal capitals. The chancel itself is 13th-century with a 19th-century canted scissor-braced roof. Two east lancets contain stained glass dated to 1867 and 1873. A 13th-century double piscina in the south-east corner features a detached central shaft, roll hood mould, and mask stops in the spandrel. In the north-east corner is an aumbry with a chamfered reveal; another aumbry is located in the north-west corner in what was formerly a rood stair recess.

The chancel contains five 19th-century classical memorial tablets and an incised slab to William Merying, dated 1510.