14th June 2011 | Saint Helen’s, Little Cawthorpe

This simple red brick church was built in the Victorian period after the style of the early fourteenth century, designed by R.J. Withers. It is small, seating about sixty people and comprising only a nave, chancel, vestry and diminutive bellcote. Aspects of it are reminiscent of the Victorian Arts and Crafts movement; for example the stained glass and the use of different tones of brick. St Helen’s was considered to be a model for parishes of modest means, having a small bellcote with miniature spire straddling the roof instead of a tower and spire standing to the west. Inside the church, the three-light east window floods the chancel with parti-coloured light, the central light depicting Christ crucified throwing jewel-bright colours onto the floor and surrounded by biblical verse. Below this window on the church’s exterior is its foundation stone, recording the date 1860. The lofty nave ceiling is barrel-vaulted timber in the nave and chancel. The chancel arch, decorated with stone keys between the bricks, terminates in marble shafts with floriated capitals. The south wall of the chancel bears a simple sedilia, but the reredos behind the altar is highly decorative, with encaustic tiles. The altar rail, octagonal font and pulpit are all nineteenth-century.