St
Helen's is said to have been founded by the Emperor Constantine
- it is dedicated to his mother (who was sanctified for travelling
to Jerusalem and there finding Christ's cross). In the early
thirteenth century the church became the site of a Benedictine
nunnery, founded by William Fitzwilliam. The nuns appear to
have led a joyous life, being reprimanded on more than one
occasion for keeping too many little dogs, for wearing gaudy
veils, and for public dancing and revelling. Joyous or not,
neither nuns nor institution survived the dissolution
of the monasteries of the mid-sixteenth century.
See
the page on St Helen's nunnery for
engravings done during its demolition in 1799.
