Our History
St Helen’s Parish Church is a beautiful 15th Century building located in the historic market town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The Church has significant links to the heritage of the town and to the adjacent 15th Century Ashby Castle and is a popular visitor attraction which features in the town’s heritage trail. The site on which St Helen’s stands has been a place of worship since the 11th Century, and visitors are very welcome to join the congregation for any of our services.
The St Helen’s Heritage Project was launched to enable local people and visitors to learn about the heritage of the Church, and its connections with Ashby-de-la-Zouch. A Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £604,800, funding from the Leicester Diocese and from other sources has allowed us to build a Community Heritage Centre containing interpretation and displays, provide new interpretation in the church and a heritage activity programme to bring our heritage stories to visitors.
Online heritage activities continued through the pandemic, and in Spring 2021, St Helen’s Church was awarded a grant of £21,000 from the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund to help the organisation recover and re-open its heritage activities in a Covid safe way.
We continue to deliver Heritage activities, including a winter series of 6 monthly talks, children's workshops during school holidays and activities for the Festival of History in July and Hello Heritage in September.
