Church Of St Clement

Church of St Clement, Grosvenor Road

This is a low, undivided church with nave and chancel, a south porch, and a west tower. The tower is possibly 13th century but more likely mid 16th century in date. The nave and chancel are probably also mid 16th century, though they underwent significant brick repairs in the 18th century. The building was restored in 1884 by James Fowler and again in the 20th century.

The exterior is constructed from a mix of materials—ashlar, stone rubble and brick—and is partly rendered. Lead roofs cover the main structure, with tile on the porch. The church has a shallow pitched roof with no aisles or clerestory. The nave and chancel are mostly rendered, but underlying masonry in brick, rubble and ashlar is visible in places. The chancel is distinguished from the nave by a slight set-back in the walls.

Three 3-light 16th-century windows with uncusped lights and a 16th-century door with two continuous chamfered mouldings are set in the south wall of the nave. The north side has similar 16th-century windows, and matching windows appear in the chancel's north and east faces only. A single, possibly re-set, grotesque head projects from the apex of the east gable. The south porch has a lower part of coursed rubble masonry and an upper part rebuilt in 18th-century brick with a tumbled brick gable. Substantial brick repairs are also evident on the north side of the nave. Irregularities in the plinth at the east end suggest the east wall may have been rebuilt at an unknown date.

The short, unbuttressed west tower is of two stages, built of dressed ashlar with a shallow plinth and plain parapet. Simple 2-light 16th-century windows light the bell stage, and a 3-light west window like those in the main body of the church occupies the lower stage. These windows appear to course in with the ashlar facing, suggesting a 16th-century date for the tower.

The interior is plain and box-like. Interior walls of the nave are painted but unplastered and display a wide variety of stone types and forms including pebbles and dressed stone blocks, much of it evidently re-used masonry. The chancel is rendered and painted. The chancel is narrower than the nave, with the division marked by a change in roof structure.

The wide tower arch is of unusual, possibly 16th-century form, with three chamfered orders: the inner on attached shafts, the outer two on simple polygonal shafts. Unusual moulded capitals have their upper parts chamfered back from an impost to meet the orders above. The tower arch is closed by a 19th or early 20th-century timber screen.

The plain nave roof is probably 16th century, shallow pitched with chamfered tie beams. The chancel roof is of uncertain, possibly also 16th-century date, and features roll-moulded rafters and purlins with fleuron bosses. A 19th-century inscription appears on the wall plate, and 20th-century paint covers all but the ridge.

Principal fixtures include a good polygonal Perpendicular font with a bowl decorated with quatrefoils featuring Kentish cusps, the stem also traceried with Kentish cusped quatrefoils and possibly cut down at the base. A 19th-century pulpit, lectern and panelling occupy the chancel. Two interesting 18th-century wall slabs commemorate members of the Chapman family, with lists of their numerous offspring, positioned either side of the east window. Several 19th and 20th-century wall tablets are also present. Some good 19th and 20th-century stained glass is displayed throughout.

Historical Context

A church dedicated to St Clement is recorded in Skegness in the 13th century. Writing in the 16th century, Leland noted that most of Skegness had been washed away by the sea in 1526 but that part of a church remained. Later 16th and 17th-century sources suggest the church was destroyed and materials salvaged to rebuild it on a different site. Architectural evidence supports this theory: both the tower and the body of the church appear to be a single 16th-century build incorporating considerable amounts of re-used stone.

The church was restored in the 19th century but fell into disrepair in the late 19th century after St Matthew's church opened in the new town centre. It was closed for a period in the early 20th century and restored in the 1930s.