Patrick Comerford
Saint Martin-in-the-Fields has a prominent position looking out across Trafalgar Square that makes it one of the best-known churches in London. Architecturally, spiritually, culturally and socially, Saint Martin’s has helped to form the world around it, and it is a welcoming place where people of different faiths regularly pray together.
For many years, a photograph of a former Vicar of Saint Martin’s, Canon Dick Sheppard, hung over my desk in my study in the house in Firhouse where I lived for 20 years until the mid-1990s. His pacifism and his social activism were among the many influences on the development of my Anglicanism and my spirituality.
Saint Martin’s was involved in founding the Anti-Apartheid Movement and many other campaigns and charities, including Amnesty International, Shelter and The Big Issue, and over the decades has been supportive of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Christian CND. It is one of the churches in London that is a joy to drop into, whether to have coffee or lunch in the crypt or to pray in the church.
There has been a church on the site since at least the medieval period, when the area was farmlands and fields beyond the London wall. The site is outside the city limits of Roman London, a mile west of Ludgate, and excavations have uncovered burials dating from around the year 350.
But the earliest surviving reference to the church is in 1222, when there was a dispute between the Abbot of Westminster and the Bishop of London about the church. The Archbishop of Canterbury decided in favour of Westminster and the monks of Westminster Abbey began to use it.
Henry VIII rebuilt the church in 1542 to keep plague victims away from the Palace of Whitehall. At this time, the church was ‘in the fields’, in an isolated position between the cities of Westminster and London.
By the early 17th century, the local population had increased and the congregation had outgrown the building. King James I granted an acre of ground for a new churchyard in 1606, and the church was enlarged eastward over the old burial ground. At the same time, the church was ‘repaired and beautified.’
Galleries were added later in the 17th century to accommodate more people. The creation of the new parishes of Saint Anne, Soho, and Saint James, Piccadilly, and the opening of a chapel in Oxenden Street also relieved some of the pressure on space. The burials there in the 17th century included Robert Boyle and Nell Gwyn.
The walls and roof of the church had fallen into a state of decay by 1710, and parliament passed an act in 1720 to rebuild the church. The architect James Gibbs, who also designed Saint Mary le Strand, which I described yesterday (25 February 2024), was commissioned to design the new church.
At first, Gibbs suggested a church with a circular nave and domed ceiling, but this was rejected for being too expensive. He then produced a simpler, rectilinear plan.
The foundation stone of the new church was laid on 19 March 1722, and the last stone of the spire was put in position in December 1724. The spire of Saint Martin’s rises 59 metres (192 ft) above the level of the church floor.
The west front of Saint Martin’s has a portico with a pediment supported by a giant order of Corinthian columns, six wide. The order is continued around the church by pilasters.
In his design, Gibbs drew on the works of Sir Christopher Wren, but departed from Wren’s practice in his integration of the tower into the church. He constructed it within the west wall, so that it rises above the roof, immediately behind the portico, an arrangement also used by John James at Saint George’s, Hanover Square (1724).
The church is rectangular in plan, with the five-bay nave divided from the aisles by arcades of Corinthian columns. There are galleries over both aisles and at the west end. The nave ceiling is a flattened barrel vault, divided into panels by ribs. The panels are decorated in stucco with cherubs, clouds, shells and scroll work, designed by Giuseppe Artari and Giovanni Bagutti.
Gibbs’s design has influenced the design of many churches world-wide, including Saint Andrew’s in the Square (1739-1756), Glasgow, Saint Michael’s Charleston, South Carolina (1751-1761), Saint George’s, Dublin (1802), Saint Andrew’s Egmore (1818-1821), Madras (Chennai), and the Dutch Reformed Church in Cradock, South Africa.
The burials in the new church included the sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac and the furniture-maker Thomas Chippendale . The churchyard to the south of the church was removed to make way for Duncannon Street, built in the 19th century to provide access to the newly created Trafalgar Square. Two small parcels of the churchyard survived, to the north and east of the church, and have been restored in recent years, with the addition of seating.
The work of the church today is informed by the practical Christianity, exemplified in the life of its patron saint. After a career in the Roman army, Saint Martin became Bishop of Tours. In an instinctive act of generosity, he shared his cloak with a beggar. But the ultimate blessing was given to Saint Martin when the beggar returned to him in a dream as Christ.
The example of Saint Martin was followed by Canon High Richard Laurie (Dick) Sheppard (1880-1937), who was the Vicar of Saint Martin’s from 1914-1927. During World War I, he gave refuge to soldiers on their way to France. He began programmes for the area’s homeless and saw Saint Martin’s as ‘the church of the ever-open door’ – and the doors have remained open ever since.
His book We Say No (1935) was published a year before he founded the Peace Pledge Union in 1936, and he was involved in the formation of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship shortly before he died.
Dick Sheppard’s immediate successor, Canon William Patrick Glyn (‘Pat’) McCormick (1877-1940), who was vicar in 1927-1940, came from a prominent Irish clerical (and ricket playing) family. His father, Canon Joseph McCormick (1834-1914), played cricket for Ireland under the alias of J Bingley, the name of one of the schools he had attended, to disguise his participation from his parishioners in Dunmore East, Co Waterford.
Pat McCormick was an international cricketer and rugby player, and was supported by SPG (now USPG) as a priest working in South Africa in 1903-1914. At Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, he did much to help the homeless and poor, he regularly preached on BBC Radio and was the first clergyman to appear on British television. During his time, the crypt in Saint Martin’s was restored in 1937.
With changing needs in society in the 1960s, Saint Martin’s was concerned for the welfare of new arrivals in the emerging Chinatown and welcomed a Chinese congregation. Today, the Ho Ming Wah Chinese People’s Day Centre provides vital services for the Chinese community in London.
The church has a close relationship with the royal family, whose parish church it is, and with 10 Downing Street and the Admiralty. But it is also familiar to anyone and everyone who has taken part in a protest that has ended in Trafalgar Square.
The present set of 12 bells, cast in 1988, are rung every Sunday between 9 am and 10 am by the Saint Martin in the Fields Band of Bell Ringers.
Work on a £36 million renewal project began in 2006, and the church and crypt reopened in 2008. A new East Window designed by Shirazeh Houshiary, the Iranian-born English sculptor, artist and painter, was installed above the High Altar in 2008 to mark the final stage of the project
The Altar was designed by Shirazeh Houshiary and Pip Horne, creators of the East Window, and was dedicated at the Patronal Festival of Saint Martin of Tours on 13 November 2011.
Mike Chapman’s sculpture ‘In the Beginning’ was commissioned to mark the new millennium and was part of the 1999 Trafalgar Square Christmas celebrations. Carved in a 4.5 tonne block of Portland Stone, this work is now permanently on display at the entrance to the church.
Last month, a service in Saint Martin-in-the-Fields celebrated the 80th anniversary of the ordination as priest of the Revd Florence Li Tim-Oi (1907-1992) in Hong Kong on 25 January 1944. She was the first woman to be ordained a priest in a church in the Anglican Communion.
The church frequently appears in films and television programmes and in many book, including David Copperfield (1850) by Charles Dickens, A Room with a View (1908) by EM Forster, The Parasites (1949) by Daphne du Maurier, 1984 by George Orwell, in which a future totalitarian regime abolishes religion and turns the church into a military museum, and Winter of the World (2012) by Ken Follett.
The church hosts regular lunchtime and evening concerts. The Academy of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, co-founded by Sir Neville Marriner and John Churchill, has become one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles. The first organ in the church was built by Christopher Schreider in 1727. The present organ in the west gallery was built in 1990.
The crypt houses an art gallery, bookshop, gift shop and the London Brass Rubbing Centre, and the café hosts concerts that support the programmes of the church.
Saint Martin’s continues to look beyond its own doors and plays an active role in wider social, humanitarian and international issues. The Vicar’s Christmas Appeal on BBC Radio 4 has been broadcast annually since 1924, and now raises over £2 million a year for disadvantaged people.
The Connection at Saint Martin’s, next to the church, supports 7,500 homeless and vulnerable people in London each year, providing accommodation, medical and dental care, skills training, and creative activities.
Saint Martin’s is open throughout the week from 9 am to 5 pm. The Revd Dr Sam Wells has been the Vicar of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields since 2012. He is also Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at King’s College and a regular contributor to ‘Thought for the Day’ on BBC Radio 4.
The Revd Sally Hitchiner is the Associate Vicar for Ministry, with responsibility for life in the church. The Revd Richard Carter is the Associate Vicar for Mission, engaged in the education programme, international links and hospitality.
• Sunday services in Saint Martin in the Fields include: 10 am, Parish Eucharist, followed by coffee in the church hall; 1:30, Cantonese Service; followed by refreshments in the Ho Ming Wah centre in the crypt; 3:15, Choral Classics; 5 pm, Choral Evensong.
