History of the Church dedicated to St Helena

A tour of the Church - Outside

The main structure is early 14th, late 14th, & early 15th Century. Consisting of Western tower, clerestoried nave, aisles, chancel, & south porch. There was a major restoration by James Fowler of Louth in 1880. The construction is squared coursed greenstone rubble, limestone ashlar rubble, red brick patching, with slate and lead roofs.

The Tower

The tower is in three stages of stepped set back buttresses, partly in brick, with "toothache" carving on south west corner of the second stage. On the west side is a niche with nodding ogee head containing a figure of a bishop. Above again an ogee headed light and lozenge clock face. In the tower is a very ancient wooden ladder made of riven (split) timbers. It may have been constructed of surplus roof timber during one of the rebuildings in pre-Reformation times.

On the south side of the tower on the left hand edge, if you look carefully you will see a carved stone showing a face with fingers pulling the mouth wide open

Underneath the clock on the tower there is a niche with a figure of St. Helena. You will see her symbols, holding a cross in her right hand and a church in her left.

At the base of the arch over the tower window you will notice a pair of stone heads with crowns - a king and a queen. These are common on the end of arches, inside churches as well, but not ours. More detail can be found in a copy of The Connection for £1.00

To the right of the gate is a path that leads to the Old Rectory. This path is made up of old grave stones from this churchyard. If you bush the leaves äaway you can read the inscriptions

Up at the top of the tower there are also some stone heads that are part of the guttering. These are normally ugly and they were put there to ward of evil spirits. Those that are water spouts are called gargoyles while those that are just carved stones are grotesques.

There is large monument is to the Hurdman family who have been in the parish since 1532. There are still Hurdman's in the village. The inscription shows Bombay as "East Indies" not India as it is today.

Going south from the monument there is a "war grave" to W Luffman. This is maintained locally but there are war grave cemeteries that are maintained by the war grave commission. There is a list of other men involved in the first World War from this parish in the north aisle of church

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