St Clement's Day - Modern Survival of The Custom

Modern Survival of The Custom

Clementing had more or less died out by the 20th century, but St Clement’s Day is still celebrated in a few rural parishes, although nowadays donations tend to be for charity. At Burwash, East Sussex an effigy of Old Clem is still mounted above the door of an inn for the annual Clem Feast every 23 November. Similarly, Old Clem and Saint Dunstan, another blacksmith saint, said to have pulled off the devil’s nose with hot tongs, meet together on the same day at nearby Mayfield. A local smith plays Old Clem for the day and is pulled around in a cart collecting money and firing off his anvil. Ironworkers gather from all over the Britain to celebrate St Clement’s Day at Finch Foundry near Okehampton in Devon. Smiths demonstrate their art and display decorative ironware as part of a national competition, and they and the public can enjoy Morris dancing, mince pies and mulled wine.

Saint Clement is also commemorated every April at St Clement Danes church in London, a modern clementine custom/revival. Reverend William Pennington-Bickford initiated the service in 1919 to celebrate the restoration of the famous church bells and carillon, which he’d had altered to ring out the popular nursery rhyme. This special service for children ends with the distribution of oranges and lemons to the boys and girls.