Old Clem's Night

Chiddingly Parish Bonfire Society hosts its annual bonfire celebrations on the Saturday nearest to ‘Old Clem’s Night’, and this year, 2024, they fall on 23rd November itself.

OLD CLEM'S NIGHT

“The Martyrdom of Saint Clement” by Bernadino Fungai. 1495–1505

Saint Clement’s Day, or ‘Old Clem’s Night’, is a much lost fire related festival, observed on 23rd November. As highlighted in ‘Folklore of Kent’, by Fran & Geoff Doel, 2009, Old Clem’s Night was very much akin in the early 1800s to Sussex Bonfire pursuits and iconography of this period; “a procession got up by the Blacksmiths' apprentices passed through the principal streets of the town, attended by a large Mob, some carrying torches, others discharging fireworks in great abundance in the most reckless manner.” - A scene very much mirroring that in Lewes, Sussex on Bonfire Night at this time.

Saint Clement

Saint Clement depicted with anchor in ‘Isabella Breviary, c.1497

Pope Clement I, was a bishop of Rome in the late 1st Century. Clement was martyred by being cast into the sea with an anchor tied around his neck. Clement was retrospectively assigned a coat of arms bearing a gold anchor upon a blue field, as recorded in ‘Saints, Signs and Symbols’ by Willard Ellwood Post, 1964. By this association, Clement became Patron Saint of Anchor Forgers, and thus Blacksmiths in general. Additionally, almost all depictions and statues of Clement found within churches depict him with an anchor in one guise or another.

The Arms of St. Clement – ‘Saints, Signs and Symbols’ by Willard Ellwood Post, 1964.

Old Clem’s Night in Sussex

“Firing the Anvil” – ‘Illustrated Tales of Sussex’, 2017.

The 23rd November was historically enjoyed by blacksmiths and metalsmiths as a holiday to mark ‘Old Clem’. Saint Clement’s Day was customarily started by the ritual of the ‘firing of the anvil’ where the smith packed gunpowder into a small hole within an anvil, and then struck it with a hammer which caused a small explosion, therefore testing the anvil’s durability. Children would also go ‘Clementing’. This ritual was a cross between ‘Trick-or-Treat’ at Hallowe’en and Carol Singing during the Christmas period, and this would involve calling door-to-door requesting apples, pears and other sweet treats in exchange for singing traditional songs associated with the night.

“Cattern and Clemen be here, here, here,
Give us vour apples and give us your beer.
One for Peter, two for Paul, Three for Him who made us all.
Clemen was a good man, Cattern was his mother:
Give us your best, And not your worst.
And God will give your soul good rest.”

The Entry for “Old Clem” in ‘A Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect’, Revd. Willaim Douglas Parish, of Selmeston, 1875.

As documented in ‘Curiosities of Popular Customs…’ by William S. Walsh, 1898, ‘Clementing’ would be combined with ‘Catterning’ in the County of Sussex, and take place over a three day period from November 23rd, until November 25th - St. Catherine’s Day - often referred to Clement’s “Mother” by Sussex folk.

St Clem's Day, Chatterbox Magazine 1896

This late 19th Century book also proclaims “The blacksmiths in England still celebrate St. Clement's Day locally by dressing up an effigy or one of their own number in a long cloak, an oakum wig, a long white beard, and a mask. This figure, known as Old Clem, is placed in a chair with a wooden anvil in front of him and in his hands a pair of tongs and a wooden hammer. Sometimes he is merely made the subject of toasts and the presiding officer of the merrymakings. At other times he is taken round on an eleemosynary quest.” - A custom very similar to that of ‘a Penny for the Guy’ on Bonfire Night - November 5th, however, without the subsequent burning.

“Old Clem Celebrations” – ‘Illustrated Tales of Sussex’, 2017.

An Ancient Festival

Vulcan, Roman God of Fire by Lorenz Beger, 1696

As alluded to in an article by L. N. Candlin within the December 1947 Edition of ‘Sussex County Magazine’, “Sussex blacksmiths have a legend which they claim goes back to St. Clement's day in the year 871” where myth has added some astonishing details to this saint's legend. He is represented in local culture as the aforementioned “son” of St. Catherine, as the first founder of brass, iron, and steel from the ore, and as the first man who ever shoed a horse. It is added that he was crowned king of all trades by Alfred.

Candlin also details that the Feast Day of Clement most likely derives from a much earlier commemoration of the Roman God of fire, metalworking, and the forge; “In all probability though, the blacksmiths of Sussex kept up the custom of holding a holiday on this day long before St. Clement's time, because it is known that the smiths of pagan days held a feast in honour of Vulcan, the god of fire, each year somewhere around this date. It is more than likely that the fathers of the early Church were forced to recognise this custom and so turned it into a Christian one by substituting St. Clement for Vulcan.” Again, another rhyme associated with Clement’s Day is referenced -

“Here's to Vulcan, as bold as a lion.
A large shop and no iron.
A big hearth and no coal,
And a large pair of bellowses full of holes.”

Sussex Iron Industry

Wealden Ironworks, displayed in ‘Unknown Sussex’ by Donald Maxwell, 1923

Given the Sussex Weald’s notorious iron industry, which accelerated in the 16th and 17th Centuries, Old Clem’s Night was once much celebrated in this county. For example, at Burwash, blacksmiths would gather in the local pub and a figure made of straw with a wig, beard and pipe representing Saint Clement was hoisted up above the door to show everyone that they were feasting, and likewise at Bramber, a likeness of Saint Clement was propped up in the public bar whilst smiths enjoyed their dinner, which was rounded off with the blacksmiths’ anthem, ‘Twankie Dillo’.

“Here's a health to the jolly blacksmith
The best of all fellows
He works at his anvil,
While the boy blows the bellows;
Which makes his bright hammer
To rise and to fall,
Here's to old Cole, and to young Cole
And the old Cole of all.

Twankie dillo, twankie dillo, dillo, dillo,
Dillo, dillo, dillo,
And a roaring pair of bagpipes
Made from the green willow”

Blacksmithing in Chiddingly

Indeed, Chiddingly has a long-standing heritage with the iron industry, as evoked in ‘Parochial History of Chiddingly’, by Mark Antony Lower, 1862, - “It would appear that the Romans availed themselves of the ferruginous treasures of the wealden formations of the upper part of the parish, where among the scoriæ or cinders of the long extinct iron-works, fragments of Samian and other Roman pottery have been found. A fine coin of Severus was dug up about thirty years since, near the southern boundaries of the parish.” This work also documents the local French family in the village - “The Frenches were iron-masters, and greatly improved their fortune by that trade. The articles chiefly wrought were great and small ordnance, chimney-backs, andirons, and smaller commodities. Bells were also cast at Chiddingly, probably at the same works.”

Mark Antony Lower also recalls the time the local blacksmith actually saved Chiddingly Church tower and its six bells from destruction at the start of the 19th Century - “About the beginning of the present century, some symptoms of insecurity having been observed at the upper part of the tower, and at the base of the spire, the village blacksmith was called in to prevent a downfall, which he contrived by encircling the latter with a massive iron chain, and by various cramps and ties in the tower. The belfry contains a peal of six bells of some renown among local campanologists.”

Chiddingly Church, drawn by Mark Antony Lower in 1852 - Which had been saved by the local blacksmith just decades earlier