St. Helen's is the Anglican parish church in the village of Sefton, Merseyside, England, and is an active church in the diocese of Liverpool, the archdeaconry of Knowsley and Sefton (since the 2015 diocesan boundary changes) and the deanery of Sefton.
The church has been described as the "Cathedral of the Fields" and "Jewel of South West Lancashire", and is noteworthy as the only Grade I listed building in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton.
St Helen's has gained recognition for its extensive carved Tudor woodwork, which Pollard and Pevsner describe as the "great glory of the church", and for its inclusion in Simon Jenkins' book, England’s Thousand Best Churches, and Clifton-Taylor's list of 'best' English parish churches.
History
Consecration
The land was first consecrated in 1170, and a private chapel for the Molyneux family built soon after. The history of the land before this is unknown, but the distinctive oval shape of the churchyard suggests that it may have been used as Saxon burial ground in pre-Conquest Britain.
Architectural history
A small, decorated chapel in the Norman architectural style is known to have existed by 1291, when the building's worth was estimated at £26 19s 4d in the Valor of Pope Nicholas IV. No part of this original chapel exists today, however during building works at the East Window in the early 2000s, substantial Norman floor tiles were discovered and are now displayed in the Lady Chapel.
By 1320, the original building had been completely removed and replaced with a more contemporary Decorated structure, which incorporated a small nave with pointed, geometric tracery windows and pitched roofline. A west steeple with angle buttresses, a cornice and parapet with beehive-shaped pinnacles and distinctive tall spire was also built adjoining it. The spire was partially rebuilt following damage by severe gales in 1802.
Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, a series of alterations or additions, which may have incorporated a chancel or Lady chapel, seem to have been made to the structure. Evidence of this can be seen in the West window of the north aisle, which is curvilinear in style and shape, and postdates the 14th-century structure.
The current church building
During the reign of King Henry VIII prior to the English Reformation, the church was given an extensive rebuild. The 14th-century tower was retained, but everything else was removed and a traditional Tudor church in the Perpendicular style was built. This incorporated a new nave and chancel with a clerestory, side aisles and chapels to the north and south, a two-storey porch to the south and small vestry to the east. The north chapel is the Lady Chapel, and the south chapel, now known as the Molyneux Chapel, was once the Chantry of St Mary.
The vast majority of the church as seen from the south elevation is of new stone dating from this rebuild in the 1530s. However, the east bay of the north aisle uses stonework dating from the 14th century, and the west bay from the 15th century, suggesting that much of the masonry of the earlier structure was incorporated into the new Tudor building. The smaller windows, rough joint with the tower, lack of embattled parapets, and large sections of arch mouldings which make up the North wall all suggest that this was the case. Within the chancel, a 15th-century sedilia and piscina in a four-arch arcade, and an ogee-arched aumbry are located to the South of the altar and predate the current structure.
Some time in the late 16th century, a range of typically Elizabethan, rectilinear windows in the late Perpendicular style were installed along the south aisle, flooding the church interior with light. They are plain but contain fragments of pre-Reformation glass set into leaded panels.
Decoration
Tudor and Jacobean
The most striking aspect of the church's interior is the complex of seven screens dating to the early to mid 16th century, when the current church was built. They are described by Pollard and Pevsner as the church's "great glory" with the chancel screen forming "the magnificent centrepiece of the whole church". They are richly carved with Gothic and Renaissance motifs, the latter including friezes with putti.
The wooden stalls in the chancel and twenty six rows of pews lining the nave were carved especially for Sefton, and date to around 1590. They are richly carved and noteworthy in that they display only secular motifs: unusual given their setting and purpose. They are oak in construction and carry a distinctive poppy head finial, fashionable in the 16th century, atop their ends which each display a single letter of the alphabet in Gaelic script.