page_title: St Clement's, Eastcheap
section_title: Building
hierarchical_section_title: St Clement's, Eastcheap / Building
caption_attribution_description: English: St Clement Eastcheap, London. Engraved for Walter Harrison's History of London, part publication around 1777. Part of illustration.
context_page_description: St Clement Eastcheap is a Church of England parish church in Candlewick Ward of the City of London. It is located on Clement's Lane, off King William Street and close to London Bridge and the River Thames.
  Clement was a disciple of St Peter the Apostle and was ordained as Bishop of Rome in the year 93 AD. By legend, Clement was martyred by being tied to an anchor and thrown into the Black Sea, which led to his adoption as a patron saint of sailors. The dedication to St Clement is unusual in London, with only one other ancient church there dedicated to this saint, namely St Clement Danes, Westminster. It is also located a little north of the Thames, but further west from Eastcheap and outside the old City boundary, just beyond the Temple Bar on the Strand.
context_section_description: St. Clement Eastcheap has an irregular plan. The nave is approximately rectangular, but the south aisle is severely tapered. The ceiling is divided into panels, the centre one being a large oval band of fruit and flowers. The main façade is on the west, on Clement's Lane, and comprises four bays. The main bay has a blocked pedimented round-headed window over the door. This is flanked by matching bays with two levels of windows. The tower to the south west forms the fourth bay. This is a simple square tower, with a parapet, but no spire. Each bay has stone quoins and is stuccoed, except for the upper levels of the tower where the brick is exposed.
  A small churchyard remains to the east of St. Clement's hemmed-in by the backs of office buildings and contains tombstones whose inscriptions have, over time, become illegible. The churchyard is approached by a narrow alley along the church's north wall, at the entrance of which is a memorial plaque to Dositej Obradović, a Serbian scholar who lived next to the church.
  In July 1645, so it is said, the poet John Milton was reconciled with his estranged wife Mary Powell, in the house of a Mrs Weber, a widow, in St Clement's churchyard where Mary was then lodging. Milton's description in Paradise Lost of the reconciliation of Adam and Eve draws, apparently, on the real life reconciliation between Milton and his wife.
  She, not repulsed, with tears that ceased not flowing
  
  And tresses all disordered, at his feet
  
  Fell humble, and, embracing them, besought
  
  His peace.
  
  [...]
  
  Soon his heart relented
  
  Towards her, his life so late, and sole delight,
  
  Now to his feet submissive in distress.
  The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
caption: The facade of St Clement's church, c.1760, from Walter Harrison's History of London (1777)
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