Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen of Unknown London, written by Walter George Bell.
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Janet,
Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen, The Bells of Saint Clement's of late years.
Speaker 1: The famous peal of bells of Saint Clement Danes in
Speaker 1: a strand has been mute. The note of a single
Speaker 1: bell you may hear when the hammer from the clock
Speaker 1: strikes it, proclaiming the hour. That is all London people
Speaker 1: are not observant. Thousand hurry by each working day into
Speaker 1: Fleet Street and beyond, going in and out to business.
Speaker 1: A cockney throng streaked with eleven of visitors from far
Speaker 1: distant quarters of the globe who have been discharged at
Speaker 1: Charing Cross terminus, which aptly has been described as one
Speaker 1: of the gates of the world. Amid the rush of traffic,
Speaker 1: and with the noisy hum of the city all around them,
Speaker 1: probably few have missed the clang of the bells. Up
Speaker 1: in the belfry, the long ropes dangle untouched by any hand. Sorrowfully,
Speaker 1: the rector told me one day, as we passed out
Speaker 1: under the dark tower with its embedded Norman pillars, into
Speaker 1: the blaze of sunlight flooding the strand, that he dare
Speaker 1: not ring the peel for fear of bringing the bells
Speaker 1: down upon the ringer's heads. The reason thereof lies within
Speaker 1: and above the stout oaken frame, which bears the immense
Speaker 1: weight of all this swinging metal that has vibrated over
Speaker 1: the city these many centuries past, with so much melody.
Speaker 1: Might seem to an unskilled eye strong enough to resist
Speaker 1: anything short of the crack of doom. But the plain
Speaker 1: fact is that the constant swing of the bells has
Speaker 1: worked the frame loose, stout as it is. Even more
Speaker 1: strength is needed till a sum of about three hundred
Speaker 1: pounds is available for fixing a new steel frame. The
Speaker 1: belfry must remain silent. Saint Clement's bells belong to no
Speaker 1: single parish, not even to Great London. They have rung
Speaker 1: for untold sentries through the whole realm of nursery Land,
Speaker 1: whose boundaries only the most distant oceans in compass oranges
Speaker 1: and lemons, say the bells of Saint Clement's. Who is
Speaker 1: there alive with English blood in his veins, who does
Speaker 1: not remember the rhyme since earliest childhood, and who wrote
Speaker 1: those lines. Someone has missed immortality by not leaving us
Speaker 1: his name. No one even knows their date. Loftier verse
Speaker 1: has been written than these jingles, But what proportion of
Speaker 1: it will be so enduring? I am prone to suspect
Speaker 1: that they are Elizabethan, a product of that great age,
Speaker 1: of far greater poetry, which has given us so many
Speaker 1: rhymes that live in nursery literature. The catch sayings with
Speaker 1: which our youngest hopefuls seek to entrap their elders forgetting
Speaker 1: that they themselves were once children are for the most
Speaker 1: part of still earlier date. How many Cow's tales would
Speaker 1: it take to reach the moon one if it were
Speaker 1: long enough? That is delightfully familiar. But it has been
Speaker 1: left to learned bibliophiles, graybeards with strained eyes, pouring through
Speaker 1: gold rimmed spectacles over the earliest productions of the English
Speaker 1: printing press, to discover that this little quip was printed
Speaker 1: by one can do a word, Caxton's old assistant in
Speaker 1: is Demande's Joyous, a nursery book issued from the sign
Speaker 1: of the Sona in Fleet Street in the year fifteen ten.
Speaker 1: Four sentries have not blunted its point, and still it
Speaker 1: is potent to produce shouts of infantile laughter. Lend me
Speaker 1: five farthings. Say the bells of Saint Martin's. When will
Speaker 1: you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey? When
Speaker 1: I am rich? Say the bells of Shoreditch? When will
Speaker 1: that be? Say the bells of Stepney, Saint Martin's, the
Speaker 1: bells of Old Bailey, Shoreditch, Stepney. They are all identified
Speaker 1: in their proper names and places, And so is the
Speaker 1: big Belle of beau Cheapside, which, with its I'm sure
Speaker 1: I don't know closes The animated conversation between the London
Speaker 1: belfries and the rhyme go soft distractedly. Here comes a
Speaker 1: candle to light you to bed, and here comes a
Speaker 1: chopper to chop off your head. I chop, chop eye.
Speaker 1: Let a disturbing doubt like unto the chopper be admitted.
Speaker 1: What have oranges and lemons, most delectable of foreign fruit,
Speaker 1: to do with Saint Clement Danes, unless it be to
Speaker 1: serve the need of a somewhat halting rhyme. The church
Speaker 1: stands before Temple bar at the gateway of the City
Speaker 1: of London. The association is by no means obvious Saint
Speaker 1: Clement's bells sent their message over Drury Lane, which is
Speaker 1: within the parish, and the Orange Girls of Drury Lane
Speaker 1: have their place in the drama's history. Was not Sweet
Speaker 1: Knell of Old Drury, most famous of all orange girls,
Speaker 1: herself a king's favorite. But to pierce the mystery one
Speaker 1: must go deeper than such superficial explanations. The solution was
Speaker 1: perhaps found by the late Reverend J. Septimus Pennington, whose
Speaker 1: long and devoted labors as rector of Saint Clement Danes
Speaker 1: will never be forgotten. Clement's Inn, now modernized and let
Speaker 1: out for offices and residences, was a lawyer's inn close by,
Speaker 1: and there it was the custom at the new year
Speaker 1: for the servants to go to all the chambers, presenting
Speaker 1: gifts of oranges and lemons to the tenants, while from
Speaker 1: the church belfry there rang a joyous peal. Still the
Speaker 1: question remains whether the custom was older than the rhyme,
Speaker 1: or took birth from it, And as we do not
Speaker 1: know the date of the latter, I cannot undertake to
Speaker 1: sit in judgment. Lawyers of note have been there, just
Speaker 1: as Shallow, you recall, was of Clemens in boasting the
Speaker 1: braggart that often he had heard the chimes at midnight.
Speaker 1: Another city church has claimed the rhyme as its own.
Speaker 1: Saint Clement's Eastcheap stands not far back from the river. Steamboats,
Speaker 1: trailing long lines of smoke behind them, come up the Thames,
Speaker 1: passing to the pool under the raised bascules of Tower Bridge,
Speaker 1: bringing golden oranges resplendent with the sunshine of Spain and
Speaker 1: lemons from Sicily. And no side is more familiar at
Speaker 1: London Bridge than that of the files of men like
Speaker 1: loaded ants, carrying the heavy boxes of fruit from ship
Speaker 1: to shore. But sentiment will continue to associate the nursery
Speaker 1: lines with Saint clement Danes, because, if for no other reason,
Speaker 1: by its unrivaled position, it has become one of the
Speaker 1: best known churches in all London. Who will tell off
Speaker 1: hand where Saint clement E's jeep, the least notable among
Speaker 1: Wren's company of churches, even stands. Ten bells hang in
Speaker 1: the now silent Belfrey, a little lone whorld to itself,
Speaker 1: poised high within four walls, undisturbed by anything which agitates
Speaker 1: the great city below. If ever an owl sought a
Speaker 1: roosting place, wherein to blink and pring himself before setting
Speaker 1: out on nocturnal flights over London. Here I feel sure
Speaker 1: he would be found. The tenor bell, big brother of
Speaker 1: this musical family, weighs twenty four sentim weight. Eight of
Speaker 1: the company were cast by William and Philip Whiteman in
Speaker 1: sixteen ninety three, eleven years after Sir Christopher Wren had raised.
Speaker 1: The present church. Saint Clement Danes, however, is in origin
Speaker 1: one of the oldest churches in the metropolis, the foundation
Speaker 1: taking us far back into the mists of antiquity. There
Speaker 1: was an Anglo Saxon building at this spot when William
Speaker 1: the Conqueror and his host landed near Hastings, and the
Speaker 1: Danes in the name preserves memory of the rule of
Speaker 1: still earlier Alien kings. Saint Clement Danes has long treasured
Speaker 1: the possession of its sanctus bell swung high up in
Speaker 1: the belfry above the chimes. Such a belle is, of
Speaker 1: course a direct link with the early faith and days
Speaker 1: before the Reformation. I feel some contrition in referring to
Speaker 1: this matter at all, some regret in performing an unpleasant task,
Speaker 1: but having assured a society of archaeologists that this is
Speaker 1: an original sanctispell. It is now due from me, with
Speaker 1: fuller information in possession, to say that it is not.
Speaker 1: In earlier times, the Saint's bell played a part of
Speaker 1: no mean importance in the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: At the point in the service where the words occur
Speaker 1: Sanctus Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus du Sabbath, the sanctus was wrung
Speaker 1: and sent its message over the whole of the parish,
Speaker 1: that those who were inevitably absent through sickness or upon
Speaker 1: the bed of death might humbly kneel or bow in
Speaker 1: supplication with their fellow worshipers within the church. Many examples
Speaker 1: of the Sanctus bell, no doubt, survived the Reformation, and
Speaker 1: were hanging in the Belfries when the Great Fire of
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty six swept through London, destroying in its path
Speaker 1: no fewer than eighty seven of the one hundred and
Speaker 1: nine city churches. In that tremulous conflagration, the bells great
Speaker 1: and small were melted into shapeless masses of metal, or,
Speaker 1: falling from great heights, shattered themselves into fragments. Saint Clement
Speaker 1: Danes stood outside the area of the fire which stopped
Speaker 1: in Fleet Street. Its bell tower was safe. Robertus mought
Speaker 1: me fesset is molded in the bell metal in the
Speaker 1: pretty gothic letter with a date. The question turns on
Speaker 1: the date the weathered figures of which have been read
Speaker 1: fifteen thirty eight and fifteen fifty eight. I climbed over
Speaker 1: the silent peel and up an iron ladder to the
Speaker 1: topmast platform, leaving footprints in the dust of London blown
Speaker 1: to this height, to get the testimony of my own eyes,
Speaker 1: and left still undecided. Robert Mott supplies the key. He
Speaker 1: was a belt founder in Whitechapel who is not trading
Speaker 1: in fifteen thirty eight, but was so trading later that century.
Speaker 1: In the year fifteen fifty eight, Elizabeth came to the
Speaker 1: English throne footnote one. Yet to add other complications. Messrs
Speaker 1: Mears and Stainbank, the famous bell founders who carry on
Speaker 1: today in Whitechapel, the business originally established by Robert Mott,
Speaker 1: tell me that from their own examination they find the
Speaker 1: bell was cast in fifteen eighty eight, and having climbed
Speaker 1: the tower again, I agree with them end footnote one,
Speaker 1: and I have imagined the bell sending out its joyous
Speaker 1: sound for the first time, an appeal rung after the
Speaker 1: darkest reign in our history. In Welcome of the Protestant Queen.
Speaker 1: You may from the wide strand catch just a glimpse
Speaker 1: of the bell high overhead, where through the pierced tower
Speaker 1: the flagstaffs bear the weight of streaming bunting. On days
Speaker 1: of festival, each hour is struck upon it by the clock.
Speaker 1: A simple use the same note, silvery clear and penetrating
Speaker 1: that to day it gives out must have been heard
Speaker 1: by Shakespeare, for it rang in Shakespeare's London, by Milton
Speaker 1: when he lived in Saint Bride's passage, Fleet Street, by
Speaker 1: the luckless Lovelace dying in poor Lodgings in Gunpowder Alley,
Speaker 1: by doctor Johnson, who regularly attended worship at this church,
Speaker 1: where his pew is marked by a tablet, by all
Speaker 1: those of the great dead whose ghosts flock through temple bar.
Speaker 1: The clock strikes first on the tenor bell, and then
Speaker 1: a moment later the note is repeated on Mott's bell.
Speaker 1: The arrangement is peculiar to Saint Clement Danes. Perchance, the
Speaker 1: old horologist who made this clock. Wiley in his day,
Speaker 1: determined to give himself two chances of accuracy in time keeping.
Speaker 1: A joyful peal from Saint Clement Dane's Belfrey, standing at
Speaker 1: the very gate of the city, has made a greeting
Speaker 1: to every English sovereign passing through to his coronation at Westminster,
Speaker 1: or returning to honour the city of London with a
Speaker 1: visit with the Belfry mute. It seems as though a
Speaker 1: bit of old London's long history and tradition had passed
Speaker 1: out of it. Wind in the high Tower sweeps across
Speaker 1: the bells. Their note is as true as ever, but
Speaker 1: they hang listlessly, no one daring, because of the shaking frame,
Speaker 1: to give a turn to the wheels which would release
Speaker 1: all this melody. Who will help the rector to give
Speaker 1: back to London the bells of Saint Clement's end of
Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen