ST. CLEMENT DANES, STRAND

DANES' INN disappeared in the Strand Improvement, and

it would be affectation to spend much effort in lamenting its loss. In a sense it was an imposture, as at no time had it been attached to any of the Inns of Court. The "Inn” assumed a dignity which was not properly its own, the place consisting merely of a passage hemmed in by frowning residences, where chambers were let to anyone who chose to rent them. It had no particular antiquity, and made small architectural pretensions.

The name, of course, was taken from the parish, that of St. Clement Danes. Whence "Danes Whence "Danes" as a distinctive part of St. Clement's was derived is a debatable question. Legends, probably with a basis of foundation, have always attached to the spot, that the Danes had a settlement there just outside the walls of London. It is said that those who had married English wives were allowed by King Alfred to reside in the locality after their countrymen had been expelled from England; also that a great slaughter of Danes took place there.

A church stood on this hill overlooking the Thames from very early times, with a pretty considerable cemetery. The old church of St. Clement Danes, which replaced that reputed to have been in existence when the Conqueror came, was taken down in 1680, and two years later the present fabric was built by Edward Pierce. Sir Christopher Wren superintended the work, giving his services gratuitously. The tower and steeple,

now such a commanding feature in the widened Strand, were erected in 1719.

Architecturally the church suffers by reason of its squat body, but it does not deserve Leigh Hunt's sweeping condemnation of it as “a very incongruous, ungainly edifice." "Its best aspect (says this critic) is at night-time in winter, when the deformities of its body are not seen, and the pale steeple rises with a sort of ghastliness of grandeur through the cloudy atmosphere."

No parish in London has been swept so clean as St. Clement Danes. Originally the church stood out amid a nest of rookeries. Butcher Row, where the meat shambles were placed under an ancient charter to escape the city dues, was on part of the site now covered by the Law Courts, and the reeking ale-houses and taverns that sprang up about it, just beyond the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction, gave the place a most unsavoury reputation, which Holywell Street and Wych Street, and in later years Clare Market and the purlieus of the lower end of Drury Lane, did not improve. The stocks stood here in 1475.

Falstaff in his nocturnal carousals had heard St. Clement's bells. In King Henry IV, Part II, Act 3, Scene 2, Justice Shallow recalls the roystering days of his youth, “before I came to Clement's Inn."

Silence. That's fifty-five year ago.

Shallow. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?

Falstaff. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow. Shallow. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir John, we have our watchword was "Hem boys!"

Dr. Johnson was one of the regular worshippers at St. Clement Danes Church, and his pew is marked by a plate let into a pillar.

W. B.