Parish Church, Reading Room, Education
St. Mary Magdalene – Helmdon Parish Church
St. Mary Magdalene is Helmdon's Parish Church, one of six churches in the Astwell Benefice.
St. Mary Magdalene News
Church Events and Services, 01 November to 25 December – posted 30 October 2025
Detailed Poster can be downloaded here
Revised Sunday service start times – posted 14 October 2025
The normal starting time for Helmdon Sunday services will be 10:30 a.m. – this to be effective from 1 November 2025.
Combined Benefice Holy Communion services will also start at 10:30 wherever they are held.
There are a couple of exceptions to the new starting time:
- Remembrance Sunday, at which the church service will begin at 10:00 before we all go down to the Act of Remembrance at the village War Memorial.
- Helmdon service on Christmas Day. This will be at 10:15
- The Holy Communion midweek service, held on the first Wednesday of each month, will continue to start at 10:00.
Les Misérables, French Evening, 27 September 2025 – This event was cancelled
Update re plans – posted 24 August 2025 (copied from Facebook post dated 19 August 2025)
“It’s encouraging that comments are being put on Facebook about our proposed replacement of the organ and re-ordering of the vestry. Please keep them coming – we need to know what people think!
A brief explanation about the proposed organ replacement might be helpful.
Several notes are missing, there is woodworm, and the organ is out of tune. To put it back into good condition would require parts being manufactured and quite probably a replacement frame. A rebuild would take up to a year and cost around £60,000 which we do not have. We need our money from church collections and regular monthly giving to meet running costs and an annual £24,000 towards our share of having a full-time Rector in the Astwell Benefice.
Thanks to a very generous gift of a modern electric organ, we will have an instrument that needs no tuning and can fill the church with wonderful sound. It can be played by all age groups too.
Removing the present organ releases space for both a church meeting room and a place for children’s worship as part of our services.
There is an architect’s drawing in the church (lady chapel) that can be inspected showing the proposals and we have a book already being used for comments.
Cliff Netten, Churchwarden, Helmdon Church”
Helmdon Church has plans and we would love to get your feedback on our initial ideas – posted 31 July 2025
St Mary Magdalene Church, Helmdon, has had an incredibly generous offer from one of our congregation members to replace the current bulky pipe organ with a modern electric instrument capable of filling the building with glorious sound.
Removing the organ also gives us a great opportunity to look at ways we can develop the existing children’s church, which meets in the cramped room under the bell tower. We plan to re-use the released space to make a meeting room that will also be much better for children’s activities.
We have been thinking about seating in the main body of the church. Several of the pews are in poor condition, and all are uncomfortable when we hold events and concerts musical concerts lasting for an hour or two. Solid upholstered chairs would allow us more scope to create a different space when Christmas and Easter come around. A new way to explore the Christian story through plays put on by the school, or a flexible approach to fundraising events. We would like the area close to the kitchen to be a more welcoming place to sit with refreshments after services and discuss the latest sermon!
Our architect has come up with some imaginative feasibility plans to show how a new organ could be best placed, with glass screens (and a new door in what is now just an opening) to provide some soundproofing to the re-ordered vestry. These changes would complement the glass and wood wall at the west end of the building.
Those plans are on display in church, and we have a Comments Book for anyone to use. We hope that you will come up and take a look, then let us know what you think. It is important that the Diocesan authorities know what our community feel about the plans. We have a lot of formal consultations to undertake with expert bodies, but churches are there for local people and your views matter to us all.
Cliff Netten and Paul Stothard, Churchwardens. [Rev Hugh White, Rector.]
For other news, 2023 onwards – please see the Astwell Benefice website
For news up to 2022 – please click here
Services and Events
For details of services and events at St. Mary Magdalene, or other churches within the Astwell benefice, please see the Astwell Benefice website: www.astwellparishes.org.uk
St. Mary Magdalene History
Please see Parish Church History (on www.helmdonhistory.com)
St. Mary Magdalene Projects
Advent Windows Project Photos of windows throughout the village, decorated and ‘opened’ each evening between 1st December and Christmas Eve.
Kneeler Project (on www.helmdonhistory.com) Full explanatory introduction and photos of all church kneelers and embroideries.
Memorial Inscriptions (on www.helmdonhistory.com) A complete listing of all the memorial inscriptions found at the church and around the village. There is also a plan of the churchyard made in 2016 which shows the location of the various gravestones.
War Memorial Project – The Men Behind the Names 103 page booklet first published in 2014 and updated in 2016. Background information & download available.
Community Groups associated with St. Mary Magdalene
Friends of Helmdon Churchyard Making the churchyard a pleasant and tranquil place to visit
Friends of St Mary Magdalene Village events to raise funds for the church
Helmdon 200 Club Village lottery raising money for Church (and Reading Room) maintenance.
Helmdon Bellringers An ancient past-time and good exercise
Helmdon Tots (currently suspended)
Messy Church (Children in the Church on Sundays)
Mothers’ Union, Astwell Group (currently suspended)
Contacts
Churchwarden
Bill Elkington recently relinquished his post as lead Churchwarden at Helmdon Church after a stint of several dedicated years. Our church is very grateful to him for that service, which included being Lay Chair of the Astwell Benefice Council. It’s now time for him to take a less active role in the life of the local Church!
Please direct any questions about the church, churchyard, churchyard walls and so on to the Churchwardens as below:
Cliff Netten Email: apnetten@hotmail.com & Paul Stothard Email: stothy@live.co.uk
Telephone Cliff on 01280 851168. Telephone Paul on 01295 760816
Posted 01 July 2025
Other contact details
Please see the Astwell Benefice website