St Helen

The church was constructed in 1869 in red brick with English bond and scissor rafters. The church was built under the patronage of the 12th Lord Petre of Ingatestone Hall with financial support from Countess Helen Tasker of Brentwood (the dedication of St Helen being chosen in memory of Countess Tasker). The foundation stone was laid in December 1868 and the church was opened and consecrated by Archbishop Manning on 21st April 1869. The architect was Daniel Cubitt Nichols, who in 1856 had built St Edward the Confessor, Romford, also under the patronage of the 12th Lord Petre, and in 1863 had extended the chapel at Ingatestone Hall.

Inside the church the wall posts rest on stone corbels, of which the four at the west are carved, (female heads on the north side and male heads on the south). The west end has a large circular rosewood window (the original east window), filled with stained glass beautifully depicting the Virgin and Child surrounded by seventeen saints, which is believed to be the work of Lavers & Westlake. In the southwest corner is the organ, a Bishop organ of around 1825 which was given to the church in 1982 and restored in 2000.

The north wall of the church has a two light shouldered arch window to the north porch and further east a three-light window filled with stained glass by John Hardman. The window is dedicated to the memory of the Revd Thomas Byles, parish priest 1905-12, who died on the S.S. Titanic. It depicts St Patrick, the Good Shepherd and St Thomas Aquinas.

The most widely recognised parish priest of St Helen’s was Father Thomas Byles who was appointed to Ongar in 1905. Sadly, he perished on RMS Titanic on the night of the 14th April 1912 while travelling to officiate at his brother’s wedding in America. There is a memorial window dedicated to Father Byles and a door donated and installed by his brother’s American family. There is a special blue plaque dedicated to Father Byles on the front of the Presbytery on Chipping Ongar High Street, where he lived and ministered for 8 years before leaving from Ongar Station to take that fateful journey.

Fr Byles said Mass on 14th April, the morning of the sinking and the Octave of Easter, (now known as Divine Mercy Sunday), for both second-and third-class passengers in their respective lounges. The sermon he gave described the need for prayer and the sacraments as a "spiritual lifeboat" to avoid a metaphorical shipwreck in times of temptation. 

Later that evening Fr Byles was walking on the upper deck praying his breviary when the Titanic struck the iceberg. As the ship was sinking, he assisted many third-class passengers up to the boat deck to the lifeboats, reciting the rosary and other prayers and heard confessions, giving absolution to more than a hundred trapped passengers after all of the lifeboats had been launched. It was reported that he twice refused a place on a lifeboat, enabling others to take the available spaces. His body, if recovered, was never identified. Pope Pius X later described Byles as a "martyr for the Church". In April 2015, Fr Graham Smith, with support of Bishop Alan Williams of the Diocese of Brentwood, initiated the first steps of recommending his cause for declaration of Sainthood with the Vatican.