St Helen's Church, Lundy

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. 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 on 17 June 1897 by Edward Bickersteth,…

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 ashlar 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.

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 chamfered, wooden-gated, arch doorway to the porch. The interior comprises a nave with a porch beneath the tower, and a chancel, with a transept vestry on the north side. The interior walls are of polychrome brick, red with black and white bands and diapering. The chancel arch is of moulded stone dogtooth decoration with colonnettes on corbels…