Saint Helen's Church, also often incorrectly known as Saint Helena's Church, is an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church on the island of

Lundy Lundy is an English island in the Bristol Channel. It was a micronation from 1925–1969. It forms part of the district of Torridge in the county of Devon. About long and wide, Lundy has had a long and turbulent history, frequently chang ...

, lying at the mouth of the

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel ( cy, Môr Hafren, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Seve ...

, off the north coast, and part of the county, of

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. As there is no resident priest on the island, the church is only irregularly used to hold services, though it is open to visitors. It is part of the

Diocese of Exeter The Diocese of Exeter is a Church of England diocese covering the county of Devon. It is one of the largest dioceses in England. The Exeter Cathedral, Cathedral Church of St Peter in Exeter is the seat of the diocesan Bishop of Exeter. It is pa ...

History

The site was originally just a burial ground with memorial stones dating from between the 5th and 8th centuries. The church was started in 1244 as 'The Church of the island' but with no official name (Calendar of Liberate Rolls, 15.04.1244). A single reference to the site is known to exist as "Church of St Mary" in 1254. A small chapel on the island, probably founded in the 12th or 13th century, was dedicated to Saint Elena; it fell into disrepair by the 17th century. A temporary

corrugated iron Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a bu ...

structure was dedicated to Saint Helen in 1885. The present square-towered stone church was built in the mid-1890s by the Reverend Hudson Grosett Heaven, financed by an 1895 bequest from Sarah Langworthy, born Sarah Heaven, of the Heaven family which owned Lundy from 1834 to 1918. The church was designed by eminent Victorian architect John Norton, completed in 1896 and

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

on 17 June 1897 by Edward Bickersteth, the

Bishop of Exeter The Bishop of Exeter is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Exeter in the Province of Canterbury. Since 30 April 2014 the ordinary has been Robert Atwell.

Construction

The NW-SE orientation of the church does not conform to the usual east–west alignment, possibly a result of a deep bed of clay found at the site when the foundations were laid. It is largely built of local

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

blocks derived from ruined cottages on the island. The tower is about 23 m in height. The cost of its construction was £4104/5/7, with architect's fees of £286/0/8.

Affiliation

The parish of Lundy was created in December 2013 and St Helen's is its parish church. Before then, St Helen's was an "extra parochial place", meaning that Lundy did not fall within the boundaries of any ecclesiastical parish (Lundy is still not part of any civil parish). The parish is part of the Hartland Coast Mission Community benefice. The church and island are part of the

Deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...

of Hartland, the

Archdeaconry An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denominations, above that o ...

of Barnstaple, and the

Diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

of Exeter.

Description

The slate roof has crested ridge tiles and stone coped gable ends. The tower, with an adjoining square stair turret, has battlements, gargoyles at the corners and lancet bell-openings with trefoil heads and slate louvres. There is a clock face above a niche containing a figure of Saint Helen (bearing an inscription of the Latin form, Helena), over the

chamfer A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces. Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fu ...

ed, wooden-gated, arch doorway to the porch. The interior comprises a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

with a porch beneath the tower, and a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

, with a

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

on the north side. The interior walls are of polychrome brick, red with black and white bands and

diapering Diaper is any of a wide range of decorative patterns used in a variety of works of art, such as stained glass, heraldic shields, architecture, and silverwork. Its chief use is in the enlivening of plain surfaces. Etymology For the full etymolog ...

. The chancel arch is of moulded stone dogtooth decoration with colonnettes on

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

s supporting the capitals. The

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...

is arched on

Purbeck marble Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone. Geology Strat ...

colonnettes with

alabaster Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that includes ...

carving depicting the

Last Supper Image:The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - High Resolution 32x16.jpg, 400px, alt=''The Last Supper'' by Leonardo da Vinci - Clickable Image, Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art have been undertaken by artistic masters for centuries, ...

. The east window and rose window at the west end contain

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

. Other features of the church include a

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman ...

and

sedile In church architecture, sedilia (plural of Latin ''sedīle'', "seat") are seats, usually made of stone, found on the liturgical south side of an altar, often in the chancel, for use during Mass (Christianity), Mass for the officiating priest and ...

, an altar rail with wrought iron standards, a low stone screen, carved stone

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

and square

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

. There are ornate

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...

lamp brackets on the north and south walls of the nave and a

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

on the south side of the chancel. It is furnished with benches, which include

choir stall A choir, also sometimes called quire, is the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and church choir. It is in the western part of the chancel, between the nave and the sanctuary, which houses the altar and Church tab ...

s, and a carved wooden eagle

lectern A lectern is a reading desk with a slanted top, on which documents or books are placed as support for reading aloud, as in a scripture reading, lecture, or sermon. A lectern is usually attached to a stand or affixed to some other form of support. ...

Bells

A ring of eight bells installed in 1897 cost an additional £425/18/6. From the late 1920s the bells became unsafe and fell into disuse; in the 1950s they were removed from the tower and stored in the porch. They were eventually refurbished and restored to the tower in working order in July 1994. In 2004 an additional two trebles, cast by John Taylor & Co. were added to complete the ring of ten bells. They are widely used by visiting ringers to the island.

St Helen's Centre

In 2018, a ten-year plan to restore the building and improve facilities within it was completed to create the St Helen's Centre. It was a joint venture by the Church of England, the Landmark Trust, the National Trust, the Lundy Field Society and the Lundy Island Society of Change Ringers. The National Lottery gave a grant of almost £1 million towards the restoration of the church and creation of the centre. As well as its role as a church, the St. Helen's Centre provides the island with a base for study of the island; space for exhibitions and lectures; and a refuge in poor weather.

St Helena

As previously mentioned, the tower bears a niche containing a figure of Saint Helen. The inscription under the figure says "Sancta Helena". All official documentation, for instance the petition and sentence of consecration, give the name of the church as "Saint Helen Lundy Island" (now in the parish of Lundy). Helena is the Latin form of the name Helen. In the early part of the twentieth century several newspaper articles, by journalists who had visited the island, gave the name of the church as St Helena - presumably after seeing the inscription on the tower - and other writers started using the name, resulting in the error being repeated in academic books and journals and even official documentation.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Helen's Church, Lundy Churches completed in 1896

Gothic Revival church buildings in England Gothic Revival architecture in Devon Lundy, Saint Helenas Church Lundy 1897 establishments in England