The Church of St. Helen, with its precincts, is by far the most interesting part of Old Abingdon. St. Helen's is an exceedingly handsome, well-proportioned church, such as one rarely finds in so small a town. There has been some internal restoration, and the tower, from which springs the slender arrow-like spire, was renovated at a very large expense in 1885; but, at least in the interior, little violence appears to have been done, judging from the undisturbed condition of the tombs and mural monuments. The church is of unusual size, and its generous proportions speak well for the pious large-heartedness of the founders. The timbered roofs are admirable, carved boldly and simply, and still quite sound. In the chancel the roof is more elaborately carved, and the timbers of the north aisle retain faint blurred traces of once brilliant religious paintings. The church possesses the unusual number of five aisles, named respectively the Jesus aisle, Our Lady's aisle, St. Helen's aisle, St. Catherine's aisle (in which most of the Abingdon worthies are buried), and the aisle of the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross. There are said to be only two or three other five-aisled churches in the kingdom. There are two or three good old tombs to bygone Abingdon worthies, and upon one of them the inveterate punning propensities of our ancestors, where inscriptions of any kind were concerned, is oddly exemplified. This is the tomb of "Richard Curtaine, gent., a principall member of this Corpâ," whose epitaph reads:-- "Our Curtaine in this lower press Rests folded up in natur's dress."