Oranges and Lemons, say the bells of St Clements…’
It is historically unsure whether the famous nursery rhyme refers to St Clement Danes or St Clements Eastcheap. Many researchers favour the latter. Nevertheless, it is the former that has appropriated the song, and proudly refers to itself as the ‘Oranges and Lemons Church’. Standing in a dominant position at the junction of Fleet Street and the Strand, the church is a highly visible landmark, and its bells can often be heard ringing out the tune of the rhyme. Once a year, after a special service, the attending children of St Clement Danes Primary School are each presented with an orange and a lemon.
The history of the church is pre-Norman. Stow writes of ‘the parish church of St Clement Danes, so called because Harold, a Danish king, and other Danes were buried there. This Harold [Harold I, ‘Harefoot’, r1035-1040], whom King Canutus had by a concubine, reigned three years, and was buried at Westminster [Abbey]; but afterward Hardicanutus, the lawful son of Canutus, in revenge of a displeasure done to his mother by expelling her out of the realm, and the murder of his brother Alured, commanded the body of Harold to be digged out of the earth and to be thrown into the Thames, where it was by a fisherman taken up and buried in this churchyard.’ Stow also mentions an event during the reign of Ethelred, when marauding Danes destroyed the monastery at Chertsey, but got their desserts when they were ‘by the just judgement of God all slain at London in a place which is called the church of the Danes.’
Although the Great Fire did not reach the church, it was deemed unsafe by its parishioners and in 1680 the body of the church was rebuilt by Christopher Wren. Joshua Marshall had built the west tower over a decade before Wren designed the main body, and James Gibb added a spire in 1719.
As with so many London Churches, the Blitz caused serious damage when an incendiary bomb burned out the interior in 1941. During clearance of the rubble, the crypt was opened for the first time since the 1850s, when it had been cleared following the passing of an Act prohibiting further city burials. The crypt today is a chapel, quite spartan and with the walls oddly decorated with old coffin plates. A chain hangs on one of the walls. This was once used to secure coffin lids against grave robbers, but is now obsolete as the coffins were removed to a newly formed chamber in Victorian times. At the entrance to the crypt is a memorial plaque set up by the poet John Donne to commemorate his wife Ann, who was buried there.
Post-war restoration was carried out by Anthony Lloyd in 1955. The interior is light, the dark-stained wood of the pews forming a pleasant contrast to the paleness of the walls and floor. It is galleried, and Corinthian columns above the galleries help support the tunnel-vault nave ceiling.
St Clements has been the central church of the Royal Air Force since 1958, and this is immediately apparent: statues of Dowding and Harris stand outside the entrance, and the floors of the nave and the wide aisle are set with emblems of different squadrons, all in slate.
When I visited St Clements, the bells began to peel as I approached the entrance. Alas, this was not to welcome such a distinguished visitor, but because the time happened to be two o’ clock exactly. The church is imposing from the outside and this is matched by the spaciousness of the interior. Although the subterranean chapel is somewhat haunting, all those coffin plates a constant reminder that the chamber was for many centuries a far less pleasant place, the military slates in the nave are another reminder of continuity, of an ancient foundation finding new life and relevance in the modern world, even if they DID have to commandeer a nursery rhyme to do it!
Author Mark McManus
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