A RYEDALE church has undergone a transformation over the past six months, and now includes an array of new features from a “lovely” parish room to a smartphone-controlled heating system.

All Saint’s Church in Helmsley began the work after Remembrance Sunday in November last year, so it has taken about six months.

Rev Tim Robinson, vicar of the church, said that the font had been moved forward from underneath the tower, and Yorkshire stone laid around it to make it much more prominent - and this has also created a space for small concerts or art exhibitions.

“We hope it will be a real public space,” he said, listing possibilities like school exhibitions and the return of the Christmas tree festival.

“The whole point of this is that we invite the community in to come and share in the scared space for all sorts of reasons.”

The area under the tower has got a new set of glass doors and this room has been named the Webster Room after “generous benefactors” Alan Webster, a former warden, and Joan Webster, a flower arranger and seamstress. In this room can now be found, on display, a letter written by the famous explorer Dr David Livingstone.

The church also has a mystery which Rev Robinson would like the public’s help in solving.

Damage to one of the murals on the north-west side of the church has left a patch of text with a gap in it. Before it is restored, the church is trying to find out the exact wording of the missing text.

Rev Robinson said: “I am hoping that readers might be able to help with some text that is missing in our wonderful murals. We have searched archivists’ and our own records for photographs of this small panel.

“Lots of visitors photograph the murals and, rather than make something up, I wondered whether any readers might have one of the missing script.”

The murals were put up by a long serving vicar named Charles Norris Gray, who worked at the church from 1870 until his death in 1913. Mr Gray was a campaigning vicar who managed to get every hamlet church in the surrounding area rebuilt.

There will be a dedication of the works by the Bishop of Whitby Rt Rev Paul Ferguson on Sunday, June 25, at 10.30am, in a Songs of Praise service. Everyone is welcome.