Celebrating 100 years!

The centenary of this building

This year marks 100 years since the building we know today as St Helens Minster was consecrated — but it was certainly not the first church to stand here. In fact, the 1926 building is the fourth we know of on this site. There was St Elyn’s Chapel, first recorded in 1552, followed by a new chapel built in 1615 and completed in 1621, and then the church built in 1816 which stood here for a hundred years. St Elyn’s is where the story of the town really begins: a small chapel (the only contents of note were "a chalice and a lyttel bell"!) sitting between the four townships of Windle, Parr, Sutton and Eccleston. It was a place to stop along the way, and over time the little settlement that grew up around it took the chapel’s name — St Elyn, St Elyn’s, St Helen, and eventually St Helens. The spelling may have shifted over the centuries, but the connection between the church and the town has never been in doubt.

Then, in 1916, disaster struck when the 1816 church was destroyed by fire. For the next ten years the congregation worshipped in the Town Hall while the people of St Helens set about raising the money to build again. It was very much a town effort. People gave what they could, including through a ‘free will offering envelope’ scheme which produced thousands of donations in just a few months. By 1920, £47,000 had been raised towards the £70,000 needed, and the foundation stone was laid. Even then, the plans had to be changed because the money simply wasn’t there to build everything that had originally been imagined. But they kept going. On 10 November 1926, the Bishop of Liverpool came to consecrate the new Church of St Helen, with dignitaries and townspeople gathering to see the building they had helped to make possible.

A hundred years later, that is what makes this centenary so special. We are not simply celebrating a building that has reached 100; we are celebrating a place that has been rebuilt, adapted and cared for by generations of people for nearly five centuries. This church has been here through the changing fortunes of St Helens, and people have continued to come through its doors to worship, celebrate, mourn, seek help, find peace and simply be together. The building has changed, the town around it has changed, and the way we use the church has changed — but its place at the heart of St Helens has remained. And so, as we celebrate 100 years of this building and begin our life as St Helens Minster, we are conscious that we are only the latest chapter in a much longer story. Those who built this church in 1926 were looking after something that had been entrusted to them by generations before them. Now it is our turn to do the same — to enjoy it, care for it, fill it with life, and make sure it remains here for the generations who will come after us.