Church of St Clement

Church of St Clement

This is a geometrical style church of cruciform plan with an apsidal chancel, nave, aisles under outshut roofs, and a small chapel and organ projections to the east of the transepts. The walls are of coursed rubble incorporating bands of thick and thin stones with lighter Bath stone dressings, and the roof is slate behind coped gables. The nave and chancel are of equal height and are separated by a gabled bellcote between them, which has two arched openings with bells and central colonettes.

The south aisle has three bays. Flanking the central porch are pairs of cusped lancets with hood moulds. The porch itself has a two-centred arch without capitals incorporating a single order of round billets. The south transept is lower and has a three-light window in the south wall and a smaller cusped round window in the east wall. A lean-to against the chancel south wall has a cusped lancet in the south wall and a plain lancet in the east wall. Further east the chancel has a two-light window with plate tracery. The east end is a polygonal apse with two-light windows. On the north side of the chancel is a lean-to chapel balancing the lean-to on the south side, and an embattled vestry. This vestry has stepped buttresses at the northeast angle, a two-light window with shouldered lintels and a doorway with a similar lintel in both north and east walls. The north transept balances the south with a three-light window and has an added lean-to on its west side. The north aisle has three pairs of cusped lancets. On the west side the nave has stepped buttresses with gablets to the lower offsets. The west doorway has a single order of filleted roll moulding carried up into the moulded two-centred arch. The steep triangular hood mould is carried up to the central mullion of the four-light west window, with a small quatrefoil below the apex. The aisle west windows are cusped lancets.

The porch has stone benches, an arched-brace roof and a south door with a two-centred arch without capitals.

The nave has a four-bay arcade, of which three bays open to the nave and the fourth to the transepts. Round piers sit on high square bases and have stiff-leaf and waterleaf capitals. The responds at the east and west ends have shafts with head corbels. The arches are wooden, above which the spandrels have open arcading below an arched-brace roof. Above the piers the spandrels also have canopied niches, those on the north side containing figures of saints, probably medieval and brought from elsewhere. The purlin immediately above the arcade incorporates a dog-tooth frieze. The aisles have wooden arches with moulded beams and turned king posts, where above the wall plate is an open arcade.

The chancel arch is composed of a keeled shaft flanked by smaller orders of filleted shafts with stiff-leaf capitals and a moulded two-centred arch which has an outer order of billets alternating with four-leaf flowers. The chancel arch is flanked by arches from the transepts which have a continuous filleted shaft to the inner respond and moulded outer respond. The chancel has moulded two-centred north and south arches, with the organ formerly installed on the south side. The arched-brace roof has a boarded ceilure over the altar with renewed paint, the ribs of which continue down to moulded corbels in the apse. The apse windows have rere arches with a frieze of circular billets. The paired lancets in the north and south aisles have rere arches with central colonettes.

Between the responds of the chancel arch is the stone base of a screen, probably never intended to be finished. The sanctuary has a marble, mosaic and decorative tile floor. The marble reredos in the apse has intermediate and terminal polygonal marble piers surmounted by angels and castellated cresting. Behind the altar is a relief arcade in alabaster with mosaic infill, flanked by plainer relief arcading in alabaster.

The font is octagonal on a square base with a round stem and has quatrefoils with relief mouldings around the bowl. The polygonal pulpit has four panels with cusped arches on marble shafts bearing figures of Peter, Clement and Paul, with the fourth panel blank. The steps have a brass hand rail. The sanctuary has a brass communion rail composed of vertical rails square in cross section with chased ornament and scrolled brackets carrying the hand rail.

Numerous windows contain stained glass. The crucifixion in the east window by F.X. Zettler of Munich is described as Royal Bavarian Court stained glass and is dated 1881. It is flanked by plainer late nineteenth-century New Testament scenes with no glazier's mark. The chancel south window has figures of Saints Clement and Cecilia of the early twentieth century by Christopher Powell of Highgate, London. Two of the aisle windows have glass by Celtic Studios. In the south aisle are undated figures of Saints Non, Paul and David. In the north aisle are figures of Peter, Paul, Luke and Clement dated 1972. The north transept has a memorial window to both world wars also said to be by Celtic Studios. Other glass in the church is unattributed: the south transept has a late nineteenth-century Nativity scene and an early twentieth-century shepherd in the east window. The commemorative west window dated 1923 shows the resurrected Christ with Thomas and other Apostles. In the north aisle are two medallions of post-medieval glass, probably continental.