Church of St Helen

The Church of St Helen is a Gothic Revival church of 1857, designed by F C Penrose for Rev and Hon Stephen Willoughby Lawley and the second Lord Wenlock, with later restorations in 1923 by John Bilson. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar with a plain tile roof. The church is executed in the Gothic Revival style, notable for its Geometrical tracery. The building comprises a five-bay nave with a north aisle and single-bay vestry, a south porch, a two-bay apsidal chancel, an eight-sided apse to the west, and a five-stage north-east tower. The south porch features three-quarter diagonal buttresses, a pointed entrance arch with trefoil headed lights above, and battlements with gargoyles. An octagonal stair turret at the rear is surmounted by a short spirelet.

The nave’s south side exhibits buttresses with angled offsets and three-light, pointed windows with continuous hood moulds, above a corbel table with a strapwork band. The north aisle has similar buttresses and two-light, straight-headed windows with hood moulds and a continuous sill band. A three-light, pointed window is located at the west end. The vestry has a pointed plank priest’s entrance to the east, angle buttresses, and a three-light window to the north with quatrefoils in the head, all topped with battlements. The west apse has three-quarter buttresses, an ogee-headed entrance with an iron crypt door, and six two-light, pointed windows with trefoils in the heads, set on a continuous sill band and beneath hood moulds, with gargoyles on the band. The chancel is recessed slightly and includes buttresses with offsets, a trefoil-headed niche in the first bay, and two-light, pointed windows with trefoils in the heads. The north-east tower features buttresses topped with pinnacles, a pointed plank doorway within a chamfered surround, a five-light arcade to the third stage, and twin two-light bell openings on each side. A semi-circular stair turret adjoins the chancel.

Internally, the nave features a pointed arcade on clustered piers, along with pointed chancel and west apse arches. A inner, roofed arcade is supported on marble columns, and a marble font is supported by three putti. The west apse contains an early 14th-century mutilated effigy of a knight, wall monuments, including one to Lady Jane Lawley dated 1816 by Thorwaldsen, and one to Richard Thompson, dated 1820 (unsigned), and one to Beilby Thompson, dated 1799 by Fishers of York. The north aisle displays a monument to Lady Wenlock, dated 1868, by Count Gleichen, featuring a recumbent figure, and a wall plaque to Beilby, 3rd Baron Wenlock by Eric Gill.