Church Of St Helen And The Holy Cross

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SE 66 NE 3/34

SHERIFF HUTTON MAIN STREET (east end) Church of St. Helen and The Holy Cross

(Formerly listed under Church End)

25.1.54

GV I Church. C12 nave and lower part of tower, C13 chancel with substantial rebuilding in C15, C14 aisles, C15 chapels, vestry and upper part of tower, early C16 clerestory, late C18 porch. Limestone and sandstone rubble and ashlar, Welsh slate and lead roofs. West tower with porch, three bay nave with aisles clasping tower, two bay chancel with chapels to north and south and vestry to north.

West front: porch contains pointed doorway of three roll-moulded orders with headstops. Tower: small round-headed window to left of porch roof, and blocked central round-headed window. Upper stage has twin belfry openings on string course to each face, and battlemented parapet with pinnacles and gargoyles. Aisles: pointed doorways to first bay and two-light square-headed windows throughout. Clerestory: two-light basket-arched windows. North chapel: two-light square-headed window and reused three-light window with Reticulated tracery. South chapel: two three-light cusped windows. East end: five-light window with Perpendicular tracery to chancel flanked by three-light re-used windows with Reticulated tracery to chapels. The interior contains a C14 tower arch, C14 foliate capitals and a single lancet in the north wall of the chancel.

Brass in north-east end of nave to Dorothea and John Ffenys, dated 1491 and depicting two swaddled children. North chapel contains brass to its benefactor, Thomas Wytham, died 1481. An alabaster tomb with effigy of a child, generally regarded to represent Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Richard III, died 1484, but now more convincingly identified as early/mid C15, possibly Ralph Neville, died c1436. Stone effigy of Sir Edmund Thweng of Cornborough Manor, died 1344. Probable C15 door into vestry. C17 altar rail. Box pews, from C17 to C19. Some C14 stained glass in north aisle window.

Pevsner "Yorkshire: The North Riding" 1966. Routh P. and Knowles R. "The Sheriff Hutton Alabaster Reconsidered" 1982.

Listing NGR: SE6574266283