St. Helen's Church, Eston - Deconstruction by Beamish Museum (1998)

Footage from 1998 of the deconstruction of St. Helen's Church in Eston, Teesside. The voice you can hear in the video is Alan Grimes, the longest serving member of staff at Beamish who was working on the deconstruction at the time.

St. Helens, the old Parish church of Eston, dates back to around 1100 and has had a varied and interesting past. In 1998, with the church having been disused for around 15 years it had been repeatedly burned out, partially demolished by local vandals and was in a very sorry state. The vestry had been stolen in its entirety for its stone.

Despite being a Grade II listed building, permission had been granted for its demolition until Beamish stepped in at the last moment to rescue the church for preservation. We carefully deconstructed it stone by stone for rebuild on the Museum site and work has recently begun on the reconstruction of the Church next to Pockerley Old Hall. You can see many photos of St Helen's and read more on the history of the church at collections.beamish.org.uk. And if you have any memories of St Helen's why not leave them in the comments box - we'd love to hear from you!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Eston
• Medieval
• Footage
• St Helens
• Church
• Vandalised
• Demolished
• Reconstructed

[Sparkynz88]

It's such a shame, I live in New Zealand and we don't have old buildings like that! I came across this video whilst searching for my great great grandmothers grave plot and because there are no living family members to care for her stone, my 14 year old mind is worried vandals may have done the same to hers! I hear Eston cemetery is closed? I hope I can track her down and put my heart at rest and release the stress of being half a world away!

[railenthusiast88]

Good to see the former building being given a new home.

[TheFlump1971]

Thankyou for the upload. My husband grew up in Eston. He said they had some lovely buildings. I moved there too late.