Church Of St Helen

Church of St Helen

This church on St Helen's Street is probably of late 11th or early 12th-century origin, built outside the medieval city walls. It survives as a substantially rebuilt structure, with only fragments of its medieval fabric remaining.

Of the original medieval church, only the 15th-century south porch and south nave wall survive. The south nave wall retains 15th-century windows and simple flint flushwork decoration. The south porch is also 15th-century, featuring a worn image niche above the outer entrance with a 16th or 17th-century sundial above it. The outer opening is set in a square frame with carved spandrels, and two-light windows sit in the porch side walls. The inner door retains a medieval ring handle.

The church was substantially rebuilt in the 19th century in phases. In 1848–49, William Pattisson designed the chancel, transepts, and north nave wall, significantly widening the whole church. In 1874–75, Frederick Barnes designed the west end of the nave and the southwest tower, which demolished the remains of the medieval tower. The southwest tower is in Decorated style, with ogee-headed openings in the second stage and a polygonal top with a parapet of pierced quatrefoils, topped by a simple polygonal spire. The rest of the church is largely in Perpendicular style, with some tracery modelled on the surviving south nave windows. A large 19th-century window with vertical tracery adorns the west end.

The exterior is constructed of knapped flint rubble with stone and white brick dressings, with slated roofs throughout.

The plan comprises a wide, unaisled nave with transeptal chapels, a broad shallow chancel, a northeast vestry, and the southwest tower.

The interior is plastered and painted, with a broad queen-post roof on stone corbels in the nave. In the late 1980s, the church was significantly reordered: the chancel was partitioned off to form a hall, the transepts closed off to form a vestry to the north and cloakrooms to the south with rooms above, and the nave stripped of furnishings and reordered as an open worship space orientated to the north. An organ gallery of 1982–83 stands at the east end of the nave, accessed by a metal spiral stair.

The church retains no liturgical furnishings of particular interest following late 20th-century reordering. The 15th-century south door preserves its large medieval ring handle. Some 19th-century stained glass survives, including a chancel southeast window by Clayton and Bell dated 1872, a nave southeast window possibly by Hardman, and another window possibly by Hardman in the south transept. Memorial tablets from the 18th and 19th centuries include those commemorating The Reverend Richard Canning (died 1775) and another Richard Canning (died 1726).

The medieval church comprised a short unaisled nave with chancel, south porch, and small west tower. The original tower was early 12th-century; early engravings show it with an embattled parapet and small spike, the latter removed before the early 19th century. The nave had large Perpendicular windows, and the medieval chancel was apparently built in brick in the 16th century with square-headed windows. A chancel was rebuilt in brick before 1828. North and south transepts were added in 1837, when the medieval chancel arch was removed. This work was demolished in 1848–49 with the construction of the present chancel, transepts, and north nave wall. The medieval tower was repaired in 1856, with its top stage and parapet removed in 1871. In 1874–75, the tower was demolished and the nave extended westwards to the line of its former west wall. The church underwent restoration in 1926.