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	St Helen's Bishopsgate Great St Helen’s EC3A 6AT London (City of London) United Kingdom
Denomination:	Anglican
Geogr. Coordinates:	51.51485° N, 0.08162° W
Reference year:	1140
Description:	Gothic church with two naves of equal width, originating from their simultaneous use as parish church and abbey church of the adjacent nunnery
Name derivation:	From St Helena (mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine) and its situation close to the city gate


Font	Font of red and black marble (1632)
Noteworthy	Collection of tomb stones from the period before the Great Fire of London (including one for Sir John Cosby, d. 1476, and his wife, and one for William Kerwin, d. 1594) Rood screen (Pearson, 1892/93)

History:

1140:	First certain record of the parish church (possibly in existence before 1010)
13th cent.:	Construction of the nunnery with addition of the second nave on the north side of the parish church
16th cent.:	Repeated alterations until the 16th c., including addition of the west façade in the Perpendicular style (1475)
1538:	Dissolution of the nunnery
1893:	Reconstruction by J. L. Pearson (restoration of the original Gothic appearance as perceived by the high-church Oxford Movement, lowering of the floor level)
10/04/1992:	Severe damage by an IRA bomb (again in 1993)
1995:	Completion of a two-year reconstruction period to create an evangelical congregation hall for sermon-oriented services by Quinlan Terry (removal of Pearson’s restoration work, rising of the floor to the current level)

Important persons:

Architect:	Pearson, John Loughborough (1817–1897, English architect of the Gothic Revival)
Patron:	Helena (249–329, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine (remembered in the Roman Catholic church on August 18th, in the Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant churches on May 21st))

Sources

Bradley, Simon, Nikolaus Pevsner: London: The City Churches, Yale University Press, New Haven/London 2002, pp. 87–92

Tucker, Tony: City of London Churches, Guidelines Books, Stoke-on-Trent 2013, pp. 52–53