St Helen’s Church Gate

Project Info

St Helen’s in Shropshire was built in 1211 and is mentioned in the Doomsday Book. The history of the gate itself is unknown.

After various attempts to renovate it over the centuries, it had fallen into such disrepair that restoration was out of the question. This hand-crafted English oak replacement was a gift to St Helen’s.

The roof had suffered most over the years, and had been replaced by inappropriate boarding. The carpenter, Burleydam Enterprises, researched similar gates of the period, and chose to replace the roof with hand-produced oak shingles.

The judges say, ‘ What is quite clear on close inspection is the loving care that has gone into this project, with smoothly curving tapers on the centre columns, which is very difficult to achieve, and tapers on the outer timbers to give overall a very elegant expression of a very simple gate.