Church Of St Helen

The Church of St Helen is a church with origins in the 11th century, significantly altered in the 13th and 14th centuries, remodelled in the 17th century, and restored in 1890 by A.M. Mowbray. It is constructed of rendered rubble with limestone and brick dressings, some timber framing, and tile hanging, with old plain-tile roofs. The building comprises a nave, chancel, south transept, west tower, and south porch. The 14th-century chancel has a three-light east window with intersecting tracery and single-light ogee-headed side windows. The 13th-century transept features a lancet window to the east and a three-light south window with 17th-century chamfered-brick arched heads. The south wall of the nave incorporates a 17th-century timber-framed porch, restored in the 19th century, sheltering a simple early Romanesque doorway. To the right is a tiny 11th-century window, and to the left, a 17th-century window of two lights with chamfered-brick dressings. Above is a 19th-century dormer with a gable supported by carved brackets. The north wall of the nave is largely hidden by a large vestry of 1890, which includes a three-light brick-mullioned window with a brick label, and a three-light dormer. The timber-framed tower is clad in 19th-century ornamental tile hanging and shingles, with arched framing at ground floor level and arched wooden belfry openings below a pyramid roof.

Inside the chancel is a 14th-century ogee-headed piscina with a shelf, and a seven-canted roof with 19th-century panelling. The nave has a four-bay roof dating from 1615, featuring upper and lower windbraces, two rows of ogee-moulded butt purlins, and elaborate double-collar trusses with queen struts, from which spring arched braces to a central pendant, plus curved upper struts. The end trusses have tiebeams carrying rectangular framing with elaborate curved bracing. Two intermediate trusses have inserted 19th-century tiebeams with added queen struts and bracing. The two-bay transept roof has arched windbraces and an arch-braced collar truss, with an added 19th-century tie beam, and is likely from the 15th century. The church contains a western gallery with heavy turned balusters, dated 1676, and 17th-century oak panelled pews. A Romanesque font displays a pattern of linked circles and a small area of medieval floor tiles is present. The interior of the tower was not inspected but is probably 14th or 15th century framing.