Church Heritage Record 606168

There is some evidence that St Clement’s was built on the site of a Saxon church. However, according to English Heritage, St Clement’s was built in the latter half of C12th with the Chancel added in the C13th. The church has been altered at various stages: St Margaret’s Chapel may also be C13th; the aisles were added in the C14th; the nave was rebuilt and the north porch was added in the C15th. St Clement’s was extensively restored and altered between 1865-70 by Joseph Clarke. 

The church has a Caen stone tower with a mixed wall construction comprising knapped and unknapped flint, ragstone, ironstone, Caen stone, pebbles, brick and tile; stone dressings. The roof is composed of Kent peg tiles. All that remains of the cruciform Norman plan is the central crossing tower with a NW stair turret, carried on four arches. The church is rectangular, comprising a three-bay nave; north and south aisles; a chancel with a shallow projection. The north chapel (dedicated to St Margaret) is adjacent to the clergy vestry which infills the north east angle between the sanctuary and chapel. The south aisle is now effectively divided into two by the organ; the east end is now divided across two floors with the upper section a choir vestry and the ground floor a meeting room. The north porch also is two-storey with stairs in the south west angle.

The square Norman tower with three tiers of blind arcading and its crenellated parapet added by Clarke can be viewed from all sides. The Norman windows to the stair turret are all visible. The roof is shallowpitched over the nave with the other roofs steep pitched. There are offset buttresses; angle buttresses to the west and east ends. Early C19th engravings indicate that much of the fenestration was subsequently altered or replaced by Clarke and virtually all window tracery is Victorian. The west window to the north aisle, and east window to the south aisle, which had been partly infilled with smaller windows, were reinstated to their original size; the Early-English style triple-lancets to the chancel however are entirely conjectural and replaced a C15th window. There are Perpendicular side windows to the chancel and the nave clerestory windows have segmental arches. The gabled porch to the north shows some of the upper parts repaired in C16th or C17th with brick. Entrance to the church via the north porch is through an oak-panelled studded door with date 1655 and initials 'RRWH / WW' in stud lettering.

The nave arcades comprise three bays with complex mouldings comprising a continuous moulding to the outer arches and piers, and inset arches carried on shafts. The shallow-pitched oak coffered roof has recently been repainted and gilded. The carved bosses to junctions and paired angels with outstretched wings to ridge beam have been described as an unusual feature in Kent and more commonly associated with East Anglian churches. The oak pulpit and pews are C19th additions. The Tower is carried on four tall arches and a scar of the original pitched roofline of the lower and earlier nave is visible on the west face. The arches have roll mouldings continued from respond shafts. The round outer shafts are recessed and there are paired half-round shafts to the inner arch. The carved Romanesque capitals have scallops, foliage and grotesque faces. There is a blind-arcaded frieze with decorated capitals on the inner face of the tower above the arches. The doorway to the stair to the turret on the north west angle of the tower has a late Saxon or early Norman tympanum with intricate low-relief carving of intersecting arcades with a stag; extrados with carved staggered voussoirs. The oak door has a cinquefoil traceried head. 5 The tie-beam and crown-post roofs to the aisles, chancel, St Margaret's chapel and choir vestry; those to the aisles and chancel have plaster slopes and exposed ashlar pieces; those to the chapel and vestry have exposed rafters all of which are mainly medieval in the case of the former. There is a C19th canted rafter roof to sanctuary and a C19th screen to St Margaret's chapel. The chancel has C15th oak choir stalls; ogee bench ends with poppyheads, cinquefoil-traceried panels to front. There is one remaining misericord seat with a carved shield. The stalls are raised on moulded stone plinths inset with hollow acoustic jars; these features are rare survivals. Acoustic jars are also visible on the east wall of the sanctuary. The piscina is in the south wall of sanctuary; a blocked aumbry to the west of it is truncated by the large arch to the choir vestry. The north sanctuary wall has a blocked lancet window, a large C15th squint with four-centred arch, drip-mould and carved spandrels, and an aumbry next to an arched doorway through to the north east vestry. The altar to St Margaret's Chapel incorporates two medieval altar stones which had been used as tombstones, and has a gradus, or altar step. There is a further piscina at the east end of choir vestry with a C14th cusped ogee head. The south aisle wall has a piscina, stoup, and doorway with a dripmould and carved spandrels. The walls are plastered and painted. Some medieval encaustic floor tiles survive as well as a variety of old flooring materials, and C19th encaustic tiles.