St Clement Danes

An 18th-century English nursery rhyme that incorporates the names of London churches goes: ‘Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clements’, with the soothing final lines: ‘Here comes a chopper to chop off your head/Chop, chop, chop, chop, the last man’s dead!’ Isn’t that nice? Well, even though the bells of this church chime that nursery tune every day at 9am, noon and 3pm, this isn’t the St Clements referred to in the first line of the verse – that’s St Clements Eastcheap, in the City. But we all know that historical fact needn’t get in the way of a good story. Sir Christopher Wren designed the original building in 1682 but only the walls and a steeple added by James Gibbs in 1719 survived the Luftwaffe, and the church was rebuilt after the war as a memorial to Allied airmen. Today it is the chapel of the Royal Air Force (RAF), and there are some 800 slate badges of different squadrons set into the pavement of the nave. The statue in front of the church quietly and contentiously commemorates the RAF’s Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, who led the bombing raids that obliterated Dresden and killed some 10, 000 civilians during WWII.