St Helens, Isle of Wight

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Civil parish
St. Helens
Status:	Parish
Population:
Administration
Primary council:	Isle of Wight
Politics

St Helens Old Church

St. Helens is a small village and civil parish^[1] located on the eastern side of the Isle of Wight. The village is based around village greens. This is claimed to be the largest in England.

Lying on the high ground to the north of Bembridge, St Helens has good views over the busy harbour. It is a small village with fine village greens on which cricket is played during the summer and football in the winter. The local pub is The Vine and there are two good restaurants, Ganders on the upper side of the green and St Helns Restaurant on the south.

A short walk from the village to the sea leads to the St Helens Duver at the mouth of the harbour, a sand-dune complex which was the first golf course on the Isle of Wight, and where there is now a popular sheltered beach, cafe, and beach huts. The Duver is no longer a golf course and is maintained by the National Trust, who also offer limited self-catering accommodation for holiday-makers in the area.

The origins of St. Helens seems to revolve around the Cluniac Priory and the monastic church, built circa 1080. In 1340 a French raid landed at St Helens but was repulsed by Sir Theobald Russell. In 1346 Edward III set sail from St Helens to invade Normandy.

After the alien priories were suppressed by Henry V in 1414 the old church became the parish church. The original church eventually became unsafe, and a new church was built further inland. In 1720 a great wave destroyed the old church. At this time the entrance to the harbour was near to the Church, being moved due to attempts at reclamation of the harbour which was unsuccessful due to locals removing building materials. The church was undermined by the quarrying of stone from the beach, which accounts for the large dressed blocks leading along the beach to Priory Bay. The entrance was defended by a small gun battery, which has been lost to the sea. The tower still stands to this day, the seaward side is painted as a seamark. It is believed that Admiral Lord Nelson's last view of England was of the St Helen's seamark - HMS Victory had anchored nearby to collect drinking water, before setting sail for Cadiz and participation in the Battle of Trafalgar.

Dressed stones from the walls of the destroyed church, which were soft sandstone, were found to be good for scrubbing the decks of wooden planked warships - hence the terms 'holystones' and 'holystoning the decks'.

The closest Royal Commission sea fort to the Island is named after St. Helens St Helens Fort.

It is linked to other parts of the Island by Southern Vectis bus routes 10 and 14, serving Bembridge, Newport, Ryde and Sandown including intermediate towns.^[2]^[3]