were among the few buildings to survive. Growth and change In the early 1800s, slum clearances in Oxford saw St Clement's expand rapidly, with over three hundred new "houses being built between 1821 and 1824". The old church was small, seating 250, and services were "… very much interrupted and annoyed by the continued noise of carriages passing to and fro …", so a plan was formed to build a new church on a new site to accommodate the growing population. As the then rector, Revd John Gutch, was in his 80s, the decision was made to appoint a curate to assist him and to raise money for the new church. John Henry Newman, later Cardinal Newman and then Saint John Henry Newman, became curate in 1824. Although he was only at St Clement's for two years, Newman had an enormous impact on the parish, becoming widely respected as "a proper minister". He visited every home in the parish, started a Sunday school and preached regularly to a packed church. The new church Thanks to Newman's fundraising, the present church was constructed in 1827–28. It was built by John Hudson of Oxford at a cost of £6,032 19s 5d on land in Hacklingcroft Meadow, given by Sir John Lock. The church had originally invited designs along the lines of Salisbury Cathedral or a Grecian temple but settled on an Anglo-Norman design on the grounds of cost. The architect was Daniel Robertson, who went on to design the Clarendon Press buildings in Walton Street. St Clement's is an early example of the Anglo-Norman or Romanesque Revival style, although Pevsner describes it as "patently Georgian Norman". The architect estimated that the new church could seat up to 1024 people. The site was chosen in the expectation that new housing would expand along Marston Lane (now Marston Road). The original plan would have placed the church on Marston Lane, but it was moved to its current position as part of a revised plan, subsequently abandoned, to build streets and houses in the form of a square. Legality of marriages in the new church St Clement's was the first church in Oxford to be built on a new site since the Middle Ages. One unforeseen consequence of the new location was that it did not automatically become the parish church when it was consecrated in 1828. Unfortunately, this was not realised at the time