Church Heritage Record 609136

The church and churchyard are sited on an elevated spur of ground which falls away to the west and north (on early maps the steep descent to the west is called Church Hill). The early setting was of open fields and glebe land, and the churchyard itself was slightly less than one acre in extent. As the surrounding district grew there was considerable pressure for burials, and church records describe the ground around the church being progressively mounded up, followed by later levelling works.

In 1557 Sir John Deane’s Grammar School was established. The school was originally housed in a timber framed building on the southern edge of the churchyard. In 1773 this building was replaced by a five bay stone building on the eastern edge of the churchyard. Probably at about this time a vicarage and vicarage gardens were developed on the glebe land to the south. In 1760 a broad walk lined by a lime avenue was created across the churchyard running from east to west. This tree-lined walk, called Church Walk, continued beyond the churchyard to the west for some 500 metres into the centre of a rapidly expanding Northwich.  A baluster sundial was placed by the south porch in 1800. In the mid-nineteenth century many of the lime trees were reported to be dying due to smoke pollution.

Pressure for burials from the mid-eighteenth century resulted in several enlargements of the churchyard, achieved by taking in surrounding glebe land and by purchasing private property. This included the relocation of Sir John Deane’s Grammar School to a site on the western side of Northwich in 1869. The cleared site of the school was incorporated into the churchyard which by this time had increased in area to three and a half acres. A low sandstone ashlar boundary wall defines this larger churchyard on its western and southern edges. In about 1890 a taller rock-faced sandstone wall was constructed along the northern and eastern boundaries. The churchyard is crossed by a footpath running roughly centrally on an east-west alignment, and descending to the west via a short flight of steps. The eastern end of this footpath accessed off Church Road provides vehicular access to the churchyard. From this central footpath two footpaths run off to the southern boundary and to the north-eastern corner of the churchyard where a memorial lych-gate was erected in 1916.

The enlarged churchyard still did not satisfy the demand for burial space. Accordingly the vicarage, vicarage gardens and adjoining glebe land were acquired by the recently formed Northwich District Council which laid out a new cemetery. Northwich Town Cemetery was formally opened in 1890. The vicarage moved temporarily to Witton House to the south. From about 1900 the land to the east of the churchyard was developed for housing and eventually a house at the northern end of Church Road was acquired as a vicarage. This remains today as St Helen’s Vicarage.

St Helen’s is a closed churchyard and is maintained by Northwich Town Council. With one exception burials ceased in the 1960’s. There is a variety of grave markers including chest tombs, pedestal tombs, ledger stones, upright headstones, kerbs, crosses and a small number of obelisks. Most of these markers are in various stages of decay, ranging from unevenly settled markers to broken and fragmentary stones. Many upright stones have been laid flat for safety reasons. Footpaths and areas of hard standing are paved with re-sited ledger stones, many of which were overlaid with asphalt in 1902. It is clear that there was a campaign of graver marker clearance in the nineteenth century, as all of the markers which are in place are nineteenth and twentieth century whereas all of the stones used for paving are eighteenth century.

An engraving of the church and churchyard was made in about 1800. This and photographs from the period 1860 – 1960 show the churchyard to have had a generally open character. On its prominent site the church and its tall tower would have been a very significant feature in the local townscape. However, the setting of the church and churchyard was radically and adversely changed in 1970 by the construction of a new dual-carriageway road called Chester Way, immediately to the north. In stark contrast to the urban grain of the area, this dual carriageway was laid out according to contemporary highway principles. It sits on a large earth embankment which descends in serpentine form from the high ground to the east down to the river crossings, masking the church hill. The road makes pedestrian movement from the town centre to the church very difficult. Planners at the time must have been aware of this radical change in setting, and sought to screen the view of the road from the church by carrying out extensive tree planting. This has had the effect of screening the view of the church from the town and thereby compounding its new isolation. This planting is unmanaged and despite some limited tree-felling is now so overgrown that in the summer months only the tower top is visible from the town. The isolated character has led to the churchyard being used for anti-social activities and efforts are constantly made to control these.

The fourteenth century sandstone ashlar church comprised a nave with aisles, a three-bay chancel beyond a chancel arch and a western tower. In the late fifteenth century a campaign of enlargement and remodelling commenced and continued over a period of about fifty years. This began by widening the nave – the north arcade was dismantled and re-erected four feet to the north. The north aisle was lengthened to the east and the original chancel arch used to add an extra bay to the north arcade. Above the arcades a clerestorey was built. The south aisle was lengthened by the creation of a new eastern chapel (previously the Chapel of the Cross and now the Lady Chapel) and the chancel was rebuilt. This new chancel was based on the choir at Lichfield Cathedral, having a polygonal east end, and the chancel walls were raised to the height of the nave clerestorey. New oak-panelled roofs were constructed, that over nave and chancel being continuous. A south porch was built and the tower increased in height. All of this work was complete by 1540.

The overall appearance is late Perpendicular. The wall tops and tower are battlemented. The tower is fine, with very good carved bands containing animal heads and floral motifs; it may originally have had pinnacles.

The church lost most of its fixtures, monuments and stained glass during the Reformation and Civil Wars and also in the 1840s. In 1736 a South Gallery was installed to provide increased capacity. This was followed by a North Gallery in 1757. The galleries were removed in 1841. In 1861 the eastern end of the chancel was rebuilt as a result of subsidence.

Between 1882 and 1884 a major scheme of extension and reordering was carried out under the direction of architects Paley and Austin. The pews and stone floors were removed, sub-floor heating ducts installed and a new suspended timber and sandstone floor provided. The north aisle was increased in width involving the construction of a new north wall and aisle roof, and a new two-storey vestry constructed at the north east corner of the church. Internal plaster and limewash finishes were removed. New chancel fittings and furniture completed these works. At the beginning of the twentieth century a new font was placed beneath the tower. The original font remains by the south door.

The church originally had a peal of six bells, increased to eight in 1877. The earliest reference to bells in the Church Warden’s Accounts is in 1692. Four bells are dated 1712, one 1852, two 1877 with one undated. All eight bells were recast and re-hung in 1910.

St Helen’s has some excellent nineteenth and twentieth century stained glass. The polygonal east end has a suite of windows installed by Wailes of Newcastle in 1863 depicting scenes from the Life of Jesus. The east and south windows of the Lady Chapel are by Kempe, installed in 1910, and the theme is the Cross. The remaining windows along the south wall are all by Kempe or Kempe and Company, respectively themed and dated Children (1910), God Will Provide (1903), Deliverance (1903), and the Gate of Heaven (1908). The west window of the south aisle is by Wailes (1891) and the theme is Resurrection. The west window under the tower is by Alexander Gibbs (about 1876) and the theme is Works of Mercy. There is one stained glass window in the north aisle. This is the Millennium window (therefore 2000), designed with the help of pupils from Church Walk Primary School on the theme of Oscar Wilde’s story The Selfish Giant, and made by Lightfoot and Company of Manchester.

St Helen’s pipe organ was originally constructed c. 1870 – 1880 by Young and Son of Manchester and is listed (NO 4353) on the National Pipe Organ Register.