We present measurements of the helical mode of single photons and do so by sending heralded photons through a Mach-Zehnder interferometer that prepares the light in a helical mode with topological charge one, and interferes it with itself in the fundamental non-helical mode. Masks placed after the interferometer were used to diagnose the amplitude and phase of the mode of the light. Auxiliary measurements verified that the light was in a non-classical state. The results are in good agreement with theory. The experiments demonstrate in a direct way that single photons carry the entire spatial helical-mode information. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.