Possible site of Church of St Helen
There is documentary evidence to suggest that a Medieval church stood on the site of St Sepulchre's Priory before the 11th century. The site of the church is in Priory Park, Warwick.
1 The church of ‘St Sepulchre and St Helen’ was granted to St Mary’s College in 1123, but no more is heard of St Helen’s. It stood on the site later occupied by St Sepulchre’s Priory (see PRN 1958), the erection of which began in 1109.
2 Revision of SAM.
3 It was suggested by Dugdale that the Priory was founded on the site of the churches of St Sepulchre and St Helen. This is puzzling; it is unclear why there would be a church or churches in this location away from the town or any known settlement, and it is unlikely that a church of St Sepulchre preceeded the founding of the Priory. The only reference to St Helen’s Church seems to be where it is listed next to St Sepulchre as one of Warwick’s churches granted to St Mary’s in 1123. There seems to be no necessary connection between the two. There is no further mention of the Church of St Helen, although Speed’s Map of 1610 shows a St Helens in Bridge End and in 1308 there was a chantry chapel in the Temple Manor here granted to the Templars.
- For the sources of these notes, see the
- Timetrail record
- produced by the Historic Environment Record.
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