Before 1726
In 2006, a discovery was made during excavations for the crypt’s lift: a 1500-year-old Roman sarcophagus. Other objects nearby indicate there was a religious building here from 450 AD, and further finds provide evidence of a Saxon burial ground from around 600 AD.
First records of a church on the site of the current St Martin’s date from 1222. It was likely a small chapel used by monks working in the nearby convent garden. It was given its own parish in 1542 by Henry VIII. A new church was built in 1544 and enlarged as the parish population grew.
A famous vicar of the former church was Thomas Tenison (1636–1715), later Archbishop of Canterbury. Tenison opened a free school and London’s first public library in the parish. Nell Gwyn, the mistress of Charles II, was one of his parishioners. Despite public criticism, as she was considered an ‘immoral’ woman, Tenison visited Gwyn on her deathbed, spoke warmly of her at her funeral, and allowed her to be interred within his vault beneath the church.
By the end of the 1600s the building had become decrepit; it was pulled down in 1721 to make way for the present building.