300 Years: At the Heart and on the Edge
St Martin-in-the-Fields was built 300 years ago. The story of the church reaches much further back.
For eight centuries, St Martin’s has stood at the heart of political and cultural life. As the parish church of the Royal Family and the Admiralty, and situated close to Whitehall, it has long been a place of worship for those in power.
Yet it has long looked outwards, towards those on whom the world has turned its back. St Martin’s has opened its doors, offering refuge, welcome, and care for those experiencing poverty and exclusion.
It is also a church on the cutting edge, quick to embrace new technologies: gas, then electric lighting; radio, then livestreaming. It was one of the first churches to turn its crypt into a social space; and it set up a social enterprise alongside its worship and social outreach.
The story of St Martin’s is a story of opposites held together:
a beggar and a soldier,
power and poverty,
the military and pacifism,
tradition and change.
At the compassionate and geographical heart of the city – and at its social and creative edge.