Porch of St Helen, Colne

History of St Helen

Listed Building:

Early C16 porch. The outer arch has stop-moulded jambs, a four centred arch and moulded label.

APM sent this note in 2025:

The church of St Helen was a building of a medieval nave with north and south aisles, a poor quality Victorian brick chancel and roof. The church also had a Tudor tower and porch. The tower stood on three arches inside the nave, and had a stair turret on the south side.

On 24th April 1896, the west tower collapsed; a few hours later, the nave roof came down, taking down the pillars of the nave arcade. It was decided to build a new church in the centre of the village, which was completed in 1900; some of the windows from the north and south aisles were taken to the new church, along with surviving internal features, such as wall memorials and brasses. They were fixed in corresponding places in the new church to where they had been in the old.

What had remained of the aisles, and the chancel of the old church were taken down, leaving only the 16th century south porch with it’s basket arch. The porch was restored in 1910.

Over the following decades, the porch became thickly overgrown with elder and ivy. A disastrous attempt to remove the undergrowth in 2013 caused the collapse of a significant amount of the rear of the structure.

The fallen stones have been placed carefully in front of the porch, and it has a metal fence around it, and as of 2025 it is still in this state, and very overgrown again.