LIVERPOOL TOURS - St Helen’s Church Graveyard, Sefton. (HD)

During the reign of King Henry VIII prior to the English Reformation, the church was given an extensive rebuild. The 14th-century tower was retained, but everything else was removed and a traditional Tudor church in the Perpendicular style was built. This incorporated a new nave and chancel with a clerestory, side aisles and chapels to the north and south, a two-storey porch to the south and small vestry to the east. The north chapel is the Lady Chapel, and the south chapel, now known as the Molyneux Chapel, was once the Chantry of St Mary.

The vast majority of the church as seen from the south elevation is of new stone dating from this rebuild in the 1530s. However, the east bay of the north aisle uses stonework dating from the 14th century, and the west bay from the 15th century, suggesting that much of the masonry of the earlier structure was incorporated into the new Tudor building. The smaller windows, rough joint with the tower, lack of embattled parapets, and large sections of arch mouldings which make up the North wall all suggest that this was the case. Within the chancel, a 15th-century sedilia and piscina in a four-arch arcade, and an ogee-arched aumbry are located to the South of the altar and predate the current structure.

Some time in the late 16th century, a range of typically Elizabethan, rectilinear windows in the late Perpendicular style were installed along the south aisle, flooding the church interior with light. They are plain but contain fragments of pre-Reformation glass set into leaded panels.

Local Liverpool History at www.braygreen.co.uk