Architectural Features
a mid C16 date seems likelier.
Nave and chancel probably mid C16 with significant C18 brick repairs.
Lead roofs, with tile to the porch.
Three 3-light C16 windows with uncusped lights and a C16 door with two continuous chamfered mouldings in the nave S wall.
The N side has similar C16 windows and there are matching windows in the chancel N and E faces only.
Simple, 2-light C16 windows in the bell stage and a 3-light W window like those in the body of the church in the lower stage, all of which appear to course in with the ashlar facing, suggesting a C16 date for the tower.
Wide tower arch of unusual, possibly C16, form.
Plain nave roof is probably C16, shallow pitched with chamfered tie beams.
Chancel roof of uncertain, possibly also C16 date, has roll moulded rafters and purlins with fleuron bosses.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: Good, polygonal, Perpendicular font, the bowl with quatrefoils with Kentish cusps, the stem also traceried with Kentish cusped quatrefoils and possibly cut down at the base.
C19 pulpit, lectern and panelling in the chancel.
Some good C19 and C20 stained glass.
HISTORY: A church dedicated to St Clement is recorded in Skegness in the C13.
Writing in the C16, Leland noted that that most of Skegness had been washed away by the sea in 1526 but that part of a church remained.
Later C16
C17 sources also suggest that the church was destroyed, and materials were salvaged to rebuild the church on a different site.
The architectural evidence supports this, both the tower and the body of the church seem to be a single, C16 build incorporating considerable amounts of re-used stone.
SOURCES: Pevsner, N and Harris, J., Buildings of England: Lincolnshire , 643-4 A Brief Guide to the Three Parish Churches of Skegness. (nd) REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Clement, Skegness is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * A rare survival of an apparently wholly mid C16 church, rebuilt on a new site after an older church was destroyed by flooding in 1526. * Fine perpendicular font. * Some good C19 and C20 stained glass.