Church Of St Clement

Church of St Clement, Marston Road

This neo-Norman church was built in 1827–8 to the design of Daniel Robertson and restored around 1875 by E G Bruton. It is constructed of stone rubble with cement details blocked out in imitation of ashlar, with slate roofs.

The church comprises a nave and chancel in one, aisles under lean-to roofs, and a tower-cum-porch at the west end. West doorways are positioned in the west bay of each aisle, with a priest's door in the east bay of the south aisle.

The exterior is long and low in character, built in neo-Norman style. The six-bayed body has plain, corbelled parapets. The aisles feature pairs of round-headed windows under semi-circular super-arches, with windows set lower above the doorways. The doorways themselves are round-headed with heavy roll-moulding. At the east end is a two-light window similar to those in the aisles, set in a slight projection. The ends of the aisles have one-light windows to the east and west. The tower rises in three stages, its lowest forming a porch approached by steps leading to a large triple roll-moulded round-headed doorway. A large west window comprises a pair of tall round-arched lights. The belfry windows are similar but lower, with three lights to the east and west and one to the north and south. The tower corners are marked by shallow clasping pilaster-buttresses.

The interior contains six-bay arcades with tall circular piers carrying sharply-carved capitals based on water-leaf motifs and round-headed, roll-moulded arches. The east responds are polygonal. There is no structural division between nave and chancel; the roof continues uninterrupted through both spaces. It is canted with three sides and divided into panels by moulded timbers. Principal rafters spring from a moulded stone wall-plate with wall-plate corbels alternating with stone shafts on carved corbels. The west wall features an internal two-light window set in a large corbelled recess with nook shafts and patterned relief carving in the spandrel above the lights. At the east end of the chancel, the window has nook shafts and an ashlar panel below a super-arch.

The principal fixtures are notable for their stylistic consistency with the building. The reredos comprises three stone panels with an Agnus Dei mosaic in the centre flanked by lozenge-pattern marble inlay, with painted lozenges extending across a stone dado to either side. The floor is tiled, with encaustic tiles in the sanctuary area being more elaborate than in the nave. The font, of the 1870s, has an octagonal bowl and hollow-chamfered cornice with bean moulding; the bowl is decorated with semi-circular panels carved with anthemion motifs. The wooden pulpit is an unusual piece of the 1870s, composed of three sides with round-headed arches, pierced at the top and decorated with tiers of jewel ornament. The neo-Norman benches are particularly unusual, featuring round-headed ends with zig-zag decoration and wooden nook shafts with cushion capitals. The east window contains stained glass with roundels attributed to the local craftsman Isaac Hugh Russell, who lived in the parish in the 1830s; if this attribution is correct, it represents an extraordinarily early example of archaeologically-inspired design. The north aisle includes three good windows of 1865, probably by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, moved here from the church of St Martin in 1896. At the east end of the north aisle is a late 19th-century window by Powell's. Wall plaques include two in the neo-Norman style. Bells from the old church include one cast in the 13th century, the oldest bell in Oxford.

The old church of St Clement stood east of Magdalen Bridge. The new church was built to address demographic change following slum clearance and the development of industrial communities after the Oxford canals were built. Founded by John Hudson at a cost of £6,032, the design is claimed to have been inspired by the Norman church at Iffley. The land was given by Sir Joseph Locke. John Newman, later Cardinal Newman, was curate at St Clement's until 1828 and was involved while funds were being subscribed for the new building. Keble and Pusey subscribed to the project, but the main benefactors were the Morrell family of Headington Hall.

St Clement's is a remarkable building for its period. The Norman Revival is primarily associated with a short period between the late 1830s and mid-1840s, making St Clement's a very early example of the style. The church at Kenninghall, Berkshire, is thought to be by the same architect and also dates from 1828. What is also significant is the manner in which the 1870s restorer, E G Bruton, carefully followed the stylistic precedent of the building at a time when Gothic had virtually swept all before it in church building and restoration. The pews are particularly unusual and significant.

Daniel Robertson was probably a pupil of Robert and James Adam and appears to have been related to them. He was involved in speculative building in London in the 1810s, and his first recorded architectural commission was the alteration of premises in Pall Mall for the Travellers' Club in 1821. He obtained several commissions in Oxford, notably the design of the new University Press building in Walton Street built in 1826–30, and restored the Gothic front of All Souls College. In 1829 he left Oxford for Ireland, possibly following some discreditable incident.

Edward George Bruton, who died in 1899, was an Oxford-based architect. He succeeded to the practice of H J Underwood in 1852 and developed a busy practice in Oxfordshire and adjacent counties, specializing in church work.