The church of ST. HELEN is a small building of rubble with a Cotswold stone roof, heavily restored in 1886, comprising nave, chancel with north vestry and organ chamber, west tower, and south porch. The church was rebuilt in the mid-12th century with chancel and nave. The north doorway of that date, later blocked, is of two square orders, with doublechamfered hoodmould and plain tympanum. The south doorway, also built in the 12th century, has a chamfered hoodmould with unusual beaded ornamentation, shafts with scalloped capitals, and a plain tympanum, on which a scratch-dial can be seen. A small plain 12th-century chancel arch was removed in 1886. In the 13th century a north transeptal chapel was added to the nave. Part of a blocked 13th-century arch opening to the chapel can be seen in the north wall of the nave, where a singlelight window has been reset, with a 13th-century attached shaft with moulded capital in the eastern splay. A small lancet, probably from the chancel, has been reset in the west wall of the organ chamber, and on the south side of the chancel a pillar piscina with octagonal shaft and plain capital and base is also of the 13th century.
A west tower was probably added in the late 14th century, of two stages with a moulded string-course and buttresses at the west angles of the lower stage. The battlements, pinnacles, and gargoyles, and the west window of the lower stage, of three trefoilheaded lights with quatrefoil tracery, were added later. The second stage has on three sides windows of two lights with blind tracery.
One of the south windows of the chancel was replaced in the 14th century with two trefoiled ogeeheaded lights. In the 15th century some of the windows of the chancel and nave were replaced and it was probably then that the chapel was removed. The south porch was built of timber in the 15th century, and the south doorway retains an apparently contemporary door. About 1600 the roof was rebuilt. A west gallery and pews were added c. 1650. By 1886 the building was thought unsafe and extensive rebuilding took place to the design of J. Cotton of Birmingham. The chancel was rebuilt and lengthened, the 12th-century chancel arch being replaced by a much larger one in a Victorian Gothic style, the south porch rebuilt, and the vestry and organ chamber were added. The roofs were renewed, buttresses added, a window inserted in the north wall of the nave at the west end, and other windows restored. The gallery was removed and the church reseated.
The font, with no pedestal, is thought to be of the 12th century, and to have been cut into a septagonal shape in the 15th century. The communion table, the communion rails, and the wooden pulpit are of the 17th century. In the vestry is a 16th-century chest. A large mural monument in alabaster and marble to Sir Henry Rainsford (d. 1622) and Anne his wife was removed from the west end of the chancel to its original position on the north side of the chancel at the rebuilding of 1886. A floor slab placed upright in the north wall of the chancel (perhaps the one said to be on the south side of the chancel c. 1700), has small brass effigies of Hercules Rainsford (d. 1583) and Elizabeth his wife, and another has a brass effigy of their daughter Elizabeth. Fragments of old painted glass were reset in the window of the vestry. In the 17th century the church had four bells, which were replaced or recast in 1771, and a fifth bell was added in 1773. The organ was installed in 1931, replacing an earlier one. The church plate includes a chalice and paten dated 1494 which are among the oldest known examples of church plate in the country. The chalice, which bears traces of enamel, has a representation of the Crucifixion; the paten does not appear to have been enamelled. They have the same hall-mark and date. A 16th-century German almsdish was presented to the church in 1935, (fn. 307) and a flagon and two cups are of the early 18th century. A red velvet embroidered altar cloth and two cushions are probably of the early 16th century. The parish registers begin in 1538, and are virtually complete.