Old St Helen's Church, Ore

Reasons for Designation

Parish churches are buildings, usually of roughly rectangular outline,
containing a range of furnishings and fittings appropriate to their use for
Christian worship. They occur in all parts of England but, because of their
congregational function, their overall distribution is in broad accord with
the areas of higher population density. Thus agriculturally rich and well
populated areas in the 10th-13th centuries tend to contain the highest number
of churches.
Old St Helen's church is important for its architectural features,
incorporating both Saxon and Norman building techniques, and its
archaeological potential. Owing to its abandonment in the 19th century,
buried deposits within the church have suffered little or no subsequent
disturbance. The churchyard, in continuous use within its original boundary
until c.1870 but then abandoned, contains many surviving 17th-19th century
gravestones. A close association exists between the church and Ore Manor
House which stood c.15m to the west of the tower.

Details

The monument includes a church, listed Grade II, which comprises the remains of an 11th century nave, 12th century tower and 13th century chancel, in addition to a surrounding churchyard and an area adjacent to a contemporary manor house, scheduled separately, all situated on a ridge 3.5km north of Hastings. The church was partly dismantled c.1870 to provide building materials for the new church. The monument is aligned on an east-west axis and has maximum dimensions of 23m long by 14.5m wide; the width includes the remains of the south aisle and north porch while the length includes the ruins of the nave, chancel and tower. The north wall survives to a height of 3.5m and incorporates a small Saxo-Norman window over an infilled doorway and two later Gothic 3-light windows. Much of the east wall remains to a height of 6.5m and has a large 3-light Gothic window. The tower is still standing to its full height. Its east wall was the original west wall of the church and has two small infilled circular windows with an infilled Romanesque window arch between them. The surrounding churchyard was in continual use until the church was abandoned c.1870 and contains over 90 gravestones and monuments dating from the 17th century to the late 1850s. The stone wall, which marks the boundary of the monument to the north, the fence which marks the boundary to the east and the track to the west are not included in the scheduling.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

20002

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Bullock, F W B, A History of the Parish Church of St Helen's, Ore, (1951)
Clements, J, Old St Helen's (Ore) Church, A First report, (1988)

Other
Morris, R, HBMC Monument Class Description - Parish Churches, (1990)

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry