London Oranges and Lemons Service

A special 'Oranges and Lemons service' will take place in the church of St Clement Danes today in the City of London. It usually takes place on the third Thursday in March and has done so every year since 1919, to commemorate the church being mentioned in the well-known nursery rhyme. 

In mediaeval times the churchyard of St Clements reached the bank of the river, and cargoes of fruit were liable to tolls when transported through it, hence the association in the rhyme. Participating children from the local Primary School will each be presented with an orange and a lemon to take home at the end.

The idea for the annual Oranges and Lemons service originated with the Reverend William Pennington-Bickford, Rector of St Clement Danes Church from 1910 to 1941. In 1919, the famous bells of St Clement’s were restored and rehung. Prior to this time, it had been generally thought that the traditional Oranges and Lemons nursery rhyme referred to the church of St Clement Eastcheap, close to London Bridge, but on 31st March 1920, the Rector and his wife arranged a special Oranges and Lemons service for the local children of St Clement Danes parish. From the outset, each child was presented with an orange and a lemon. The press loved it and a regular annual service became essential. 

Attendance at the early services was huge, with over 500 children present. An early feature was the school handbell ringers opening the service with a rendition of the nursery rhyme. After the Blitz and the death of the Rector, the service became sporadic. In 1944, it is recorded that the Reverend P D Ellis distributed oranges – no lemons were available – to 26 children in the bombed-out ruins of the church. Even then, the handbell ringers were present and a choir from the school sang Psalm 122. With the restoration of St Clement Danes as the Central Church of the Royal Air Force in 1957, the opportunity was taken to revive the tradition of the children’s Oranges and Lemons service in 1959. Garlands of oranges and lemons were hung above the new bells. For many years, the oranges and lemons were specially flown in from RAF bases on Cyprus. 

The nursery rhyme is of uncertain age, although versions of it date back as least as far as the early eighteenth century. Some suggest that it grew from sightings of citrus fruits being unloaded in docklands. However, the earliest known written version of the song (circa 1744) starts with the lines:

Two Sticks and Apple, 

Ring ye Bells at Whitechapple.

So it's likely that 'oranges and lemons' was chosen simply as a rhyme for St Clements. The tune itself follows a bell ringing pattern so perhaps it was a form of mnemonic for bellringers in some form? Many theories abound to the meaning behind the words of the final verse with one theory stating that it related to capital punishment (the Tower of London isn't too far away). But no one really knows. 

St Clements, other churches referred to include St Martin’s (probably St Martin’s Orgar church butthat was lost in the Great Fire of 1666 so, today, it's either either Ludgate or St Martin in the Fields), Old Bailey (St Sepulchre without Newgate), Shoreditch (St Leonard), Stepney (St Dunstan and All Saints) and Bow (St Mary-le-Bow). All of them can be found within walking distance of each other on the North bank of the Thames.

There's a lot of history tied up in folk song and traditional rhymes.