Beginnings

St Elyn’s Chapel

The first historical record of St Elyn’s Chapel is in the year 1552, when an inventory was taken of the goods in the churches and chapels of Lancashire. Of St Elyn’s Chapel there was recorded “one chalis and a lyttle bell belongyng to Seynt Eleyn’s Chapell” [sic]. The current building stands on (or very close to) the site of this original chapel.

The Downbell Deed

By the turn of the seventeenth century the patronage of the Chapel was in the hands of the Roughley family. In 1613 two members of this family—Katherine Downbell and her son James—decided that something must be done to improve the worship and maintenance of the Chapel. In the deed, they gave the building to the people of the district it served. The central aim of the donors was—

that divine service may be continued in the chapel and that the chapel in great decay might be repaired

Education

In 1613 a free school was built in the chapel. Five years later, in 1618, the original St Elyn’s had been demolished and in its place the “Downbell Chapel” with a new “Roughley School” was opened. This lasted for 50 years until 1670 when John Lyon of Windle built a new school building in the chapel yard.

Origins of the town

The location of St Elyn’s chapel was at the junction of the four villages of Eccleston, Windle, Parr and Sutton. A hamlet grew around St Elyn’s chapel, becoming the centre of the surrounding villages. When a town was eventually formed in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was named “St Helens” after the chapel.