St Martin-in-the-Fields at 300

My time at St.Martin-in-the-Fields High School for Girls was so happy and such a formative time for me. It felt like being wrapped in a comfort blanket! It set me up for life. All the experiences, especially musically, went to make me the person I am today. Thanks to Mrs Wright and the Music Department, I was able to make music a major part of my life, both as a career in teaching and for pleasure. I still use cooking methods I learned in Domestic Science with Mrs Lewis too! Swimming, playing tennis and netball was also a great joy and I continued swimming and tennis for many years. I have such vivid memories of the times we went up to the church in Trafalgar Square for services and volunteering in the Crypt on a Sunday morning at the Soup Kitchen. Wonderful times! Thank you St Martins! I come to the church when I can when visiting London and still experience that special feeling of spiritual warmth that only comes from St Martins.

As someone participating from a distance, St Martin’s Online is a real lifeline, giving me a true sense of belonging and connection.

I benefit enormously from Jolley Gosnold’s interviews with Sam Wells on the lectionary readings in How Then Shall We Preach?, which bring fresh insight to weekly Scripture. Saturday morning prayer walks with the Nazareth Community offer clear themes for weekly reflection, while their silent prayer gatherings provide precious space for stillness. Participating in Bread for the World and Sacred Space allows me to sing along from home and feel united with a wider community, while the autumn and spring lecture series consistently challenges and inspires me.

This rich smorgasbord of opportunities wonderfully complements and enriches my local church life. Together, they deepen my love of Scripture, strengthen my faith, and nurture my spiritual journey in ways for which I am profoundly grateful.

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Raised by a Welsh father and Israeli mother, London became my home, but St. Martin in the Fields was always central. Growing up amid violence in Israel, my gentle, anti-war father only seemed truly at home at the Crypt, indulging in recitals and pudding overflowing with custard (“Be a devil,” he’d say).

When I moved to the UK, the Crypt became my continuous axis, offering safety and protection. Discovering that Liberty was founded there deepened this bond, creating a still point in a turning world.

Five years after my father’s death, I returned to Israel-Palestine to work for +972 Magazine, advocating for human rights and nonviolence. London remains my moral sanctuary. Whenever I return, I visit St. Martin’s first – checking recitals, heading to the Crypt, and feeling closer to my father than anywhere else.

Happy 300th birthday, St. Martin in the Fields! I’ll have extra custard in your honor.

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I arrived at St Martin-in-the-Fields by chance in 1987, after finding another church closed. That evening’s service changed my life: I joined the Catechumenate and was confirmed in 1988. Over the next twelve years, St Martin’s became my spiritual home. I served through meditation and Bible study groups, the Social Care Unit and its Canterbury pilgrimage, and by leading Evening Prayer. As Concerts Manager from 1992, I helped develop the successful candlelit Baroque series, lunchtime concerts and Young Musician of the Year. St Martin’s brought together my faith, gifts, work and friendships, while its Trafalgar Square setting placed me close to moments of history. When I moved to Devon in 1999, I left more than a church or workplace: I left a home, a vocation and a community whose deeper faith has accompanied me ever since.

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Kathleen started school at St Martin’s School (now The Connection) in 1927. These transcribed memories are about the church by her daughter:

At about six I transferred to the junior department. One day a fortnight we crossed the churchyard for a short service. I loved its blue and gold, royal coats of arms and candles, so different from austere puritanism I grew up around.

Dick Shepherd was often seen playing cricket with the boys; his work with the down and outs showed me the church was more than a building.

A bright spot was the children’s chapel, something especial for young children. Round the back were the old stables, no longer housing horses. I once took a message to the crippled organist in his mews house and wondered how he played the pedals. It was an enchanting place; bells pealed for weddings, and every Tuesday someone played well-known tunes on them.

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In the summer of 2015 I had an exhibition in The Crypt Gallery at St Martin in the Fields. It was an exhibition of semi abstract landscape paintings and cyanotype prints to celebrate the awe and wonder of the english landscape. It was also to mark my 50th birthday. It was a perfect venue for such a show combining the quiet, reflective paintings set within a spiritual sanctuary offering the viewer a moment to pause.

I first encountered St. Martins in 1997 when volunteering at a local homeless charity in Chichester (Stonepillow). One of the staff at the charity used to travel up to London almost every weekend to attend the Sunday service and spend the weekend helping with the St. Martins clients. I started to support St. Martins and always visited the church when I could. After retirement my husband and I started spending a few weekends every year in London, staying at The Victory Services Club and I always make my way to St. Martins on Sunday morning for the Eucharist Service. I was hooked from the first service I attended, there was something very special going on in this church and I was so moved by the whole experience. The liturgy, prayers, superb sermons, I heard Rev. Sam on that first visit, and of course the wonderful music and choral singing, I left the church feeling spiritually lifted.
During the Covid Pandemic when my village church was closed (my first spiritual home) I tuned into St. Martins every Sunday and I followed Richard on his Saturday morning Nazareth walks. I also read Richard’s book ‘The City is my Monastery’ twice and still dip into it – what a wonderful book.
I try to support St. Martins financially whenever I can, by regular payments to the church and The Connection and by giving to your various appeals.
I have come to love the special place that is St. Martins in the Fields and hope to continue to visit ‘my second spiritual home’ whenever we are in London.

In the first decade of the 21st century I was working in an office in Pimlico and frequently used to come in to work for those days between Christmas and New Year when few people were around and everything seemed to be becalmed. The places I usually went for lunch were all closed, so I used to walk up Marsham Street and Horse Guards to Trafalgar Square, then descend to the crypt cafe at St.Martin-in-the-fields for a meal (nearly always soup followed by apple crumble and custard – the apples still had their skins on, so the crumble tasted very home-made). It was a hive of activity below, when everything on the surface seemed deserted.
Later, I started going to concerts at St.Martin’s, and met a musician friend of mine with whom I had barely been in contact for about 25 years, enabling us to renew contact details and keep in better touch (so far).

We like to travel to London every year, coinciding with the Advent season and motivated above all by the way of understanding the Christmas spirit, the excellent musicsl offer, your composers like John Rutter anb Bob Chilcott. The fantastic groups like Monteverdi Choir, Voces 8, King Singers, St Martin’s Voices……..and RAH, Cadogan, Smith Square hall, St Jame’s Piccadilly……But for us, the most delicate, intimate and welcoming place is Saint Martin in the Fields, with its Christmas concerts full of life and interpretative excellence. We still have very much present in our memory the Messiah of Handel on December 2025 by the Monteverdi Choir and which counted on the presence of H.M the King.
In short, I would like you tell you that for us St Martin’s is a benchmark of quality and also of participatory intimacy.
We are looking forward, God willing, to returning there this Advent to listen our reserved concerts.
Our gratitude and admiration for things well done.
With our best wishes.

Salvador T.S. & Mary R.M.

My first experiences with the Church were in the 1980s, as a teenager, visiting London with my parents, on occasional Canadian school March Breaks. We would spend a week enjoying all of the great sites of a huge city, but always return to a novel treat – the brass rubbing in the crypt of the Church… accompanied by a decent pot of tea and a scone, of course! By 2001, I had moved to London and periodically visited the Church out of nostalgia, but also inviting my parents when *they* came to visit *me*. A decade later, with my own family, it was time to continue to the tradition. The crypt has become a convenient work / study area in Central London and… on at least one Father’s Day… a chance to visit for more brass rubbings with my new generation, but sitting in the same area as I would have sat with my parents over nearly 4 decades earlier. Now, as a walking tour guide in London, I encourage my guests to visit the Church, but still keep going back on my own for sentimentality, tranquility and of course, a refreshing pot-of-tea!

So many happy memories. At the age of 17, from a farm in rural Wiltshire, I came to live at the top of the vicarage overlooking the Square, while I worked in the Undercroft reaching out to those who came – a part of the work of the Social Service Unit. During the time Austen Williams was Vicar, I have many fond memories of all sorts of people: Sir Trenchard Cox, churchwarden, Carolyn Scott, author of From Heaven to Charing Cross, Miss A and Ethel in the kitchen in the old Underground. David Partridge, Roy Hazell and then Hugh Maddox as curates. Norman Ingram-Smith, Roger Shaljean, Heather Flowerdew and many others. Thursday Night at 8, the Choir and services. Going to 144 Piccadilly one night while it had been taken over by hippy squatters, climbing up a ladder in through a first floor window. It was my joy and privilege to be a very small part of the ongoing story of that wonderful place, the spirit of which was captured by Bishop Joost de Blank who said of St. Martin’s, “They just go on their own way, doing what they think God wants them to do”. The whole experience was a foundational part of my own vocation 58 years ago.

I was a student radiographer at the Westminster Hospital from 1968-1971. A group of us used to attend the Folk Club in the crypt on Sunday evenings, which was a gtreat night out.
We also saw a production called ‘Alive!’ in early 1971. I think we went a couple of times and I bought the LP, which I still have. (Just looked in the sleeve and there is a programme with all the dialogue and songs. The LP was on sale ‘for about £1.00’!

Nowadays when I’m up in London the Crypt Cafe is one of my favourite places for coffee and lunch.
It brings back lots of good memories.

I was a pupil at St Martin-in -the-Fields from 1975 until 1982. We were introduced to the Church and it’s wider work during visits from the Vicar to the school ( Rev. Austen Williams ) and with class visits to the Church; and with Founders Day and the Christmas Carol Service being important dates in the calendar. Frequently contributing to these occasions and other services through the school choir.

I have returned frequently since leaving school, sometimes a brief visit or a concert, lecture or service. Each time I feel not only the history of the Church itself, but of all the pastoral work undertaken over the generations by St Martin’s and those that have benefitted in a large or small way. I have never forgotten the story of St Martin and his example to us all, to help others.

Thank you St Martin’s.

Like a lot of people when I arrived in London in 1971 I was a bit lost, so very grateful when St Martins became a central point of contact. I first became involved with St Martin’s through the folk club. My Sister Liz Cox was a folk singer and we would trail round the folk clubs in North London. Many a Sunday night was spent watching Ron’s Liquid Light Show and listening and singing along with the various performers.
I then volunteered with the Sunday Soup kitchen run by Nancy and later volunteered at the Social Service Unit lead by the wonderful Norman Ingram Smith.
At the folk club I met John Quigley recently arrived from Scotland and we started dating and in those early months went on a trip to Chartres and Vezelay organised by the Rev Ron Swan, travelling in an ambulance called Sir Jasper!
John was involved in the Centre and was present at the opening event which the Duke of Edinburgh attended. John was also part of the musical ‘Alive ‘
St Martin’s was a focal part of our lives in the early 70’s and still holds a very special place in our hearts. We have shown our grandchildren the spot in the Crypt where we met! We still arrange to meet friends on the Steps of St Martins. John and I will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary this September which wouldn’t be happening without our meeting at St Martin’s.
Congratulations St Martin’s on 300 years of being in the heart of London and serving the needy and welcoming all.

I first came across St Martin’s in the late 1980s when I used to walk through Trafalgar Square on my way home from work to Charing Cross. Later in life my partner’s cousin died in the earthquake in Haiti and his body was recovered to be buried back at the family home in Kent, with a memorial service held at St Martin’s. The family speak about the kindness shown to them following this tragic period in their lives and hold St Martin’s close to their hearts. About three years ago I took up a new role in my career working for the St Martin-in-the-Fields Trust, a move from the corporate world to the charity sector – this is something I have not regretted as I have found St Martin’s to be a warm, welcoming and caring community and I hope this will continue for many more years to come.

I was a teacher of the arts for forty years. I have two particular and poignant memories of St Martin-in-the-Fields, both centring on artworks there. I used one for a reflective service at my own church in Cambridge, where I looked at the many widely differing ways that Christ is portrayed through visual art. I showed many examples, but ended with the moment when my partner and I, wandering in London on a day trip, walked up the steps to take a look at St. Martin’s. We were puzzled by a large block of marble at the top of the steps, with wording on it. To what did it relate? we wondered. Walking round, we discovered a small step, which silently invited us to use it. We stood on it, looked at the top of the block – and there it was. Whatever we were expecting, it was not this. And yet what else would be there? We stood silent, an unforgettable moment of deepest admiration and humbleness.
Years later, I bought tickets to hear the Gesualdo Six as Christmas present for my partner. I was a huge fan; he had never heard them. I did not tell him what the tickets were for. We sat on the front row and were immediately intrigued by the suspended egg shape in the window. It looked like a grey oval caught in a net. But then, very gradually, it began to get dark outside. If you have never experienced the opening notes from the Gesualdo Six, accompanied by the miraculous sight of the suspended egg beginning to glow blue like a moonstone, I can only hope that maybe one day you will. It was like being part of a developing mystery or miracle. The searing music and the glowing blueness intensified, and our eyes leaked. I don’t think we breathed.

I used to attend the Sunday morning Eucharist a lot in the 1980’s. During those years the Unicorn Theatre for children was not far away to walk to at Covent Garden and I would often take my son there to the workshops they had on Saturday and Sunday mornings. They began at 10am so I would leave him there and then walk down to St Martin’s in time for the 10.30 service and then afterwards go and collect him again. I loved going to the church and seeing the most unusual window behind the altar and it always now seems to be featured on Songs of Praise on T.V. so I often remember these ties. I am over 80 now and unable to get about as much but hope to visit again soon.

I met at St Martins by arrangement a scholar Hilary Chapman visiting from New Zealand to discuss a boy Henry Sutherland who was born in 1851 in the St Martins Workhouse in the most unpromising circumstances. Henry with his mother Mary Sutherland features in the Tom Stoppard trilogy The Coast of Utopia where the young boy Henry is rather a waif like figure: the Russian writer and political refugee Nicholas Ogarev has taken up with Mary. But in adult life because of Ogarev’s early educational support to the boy, Henry qualified as a medical doctor in Paris and led his life there. St Martins was the natural venue for us to meet. Ogarev has a poem ‘At Bedtime’ set to music by Tchaikovsky Opus 27 which is described as an evening prayer.

My late uncle was kindly offered a place to rest/sleep (in St Martin in the Fields) when he first arrived from Ireland in the 1950s, with little money & nowhere to stay.
I will eternally be grateful to the church & I always think of him, whenever I visit/worship or just walk past! 🙏❤️

I attended a recital at a private address in Bayswater several years ago and met Tomo Keller – then and now leader of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. He told me about it and this led me to sign up as a “friend” of the orchestra. I have derived endless pleasure from atttending concerts, rehearsals and many special events.
I regard it as a privilege to be a Friend of one of the world’s greatest chamber orchestras.

Fifty years ago, recovering from Glandular Fever and seeking to rebuild my social life, I began volunteering at the Centre for Young People. This led to Bible study with Curate Andy Couch, Sunday Folk Club, and memorable weekend retreats to Micklepage, where I formed lifelong friendships.

Gradually, my involvement deepened: I joined the 9.30am Eucharist, served as Assistant Churchwarden, volunteered with the Social Service Unit, chaired the Worship and Lay Training Committee, co-wrote a prayer for the 1987 Service Booklet, and helped launch Praxis in 1990. I also served as a Trustee for the Vicar’s General Fund. Crucially, on the PCC, I pushed for visionary plans that sparked the modern transformation of the Crypt.

Under Revd Nick Holtam, I felt called to ordained ministry. Ordained in 2008, I served in Stepney and Bethnal Green as a chaplain, and now hold Permission to Officiate in Europe, enjoying locum posts in Vienna and Lausanne.

St Martin-in-the-Fields remains deeply dear to my heart. I look forward to celebrating its 300th anniversary on 18 October.

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It was snowing when I first visited St. Martin’s in August this year (1965) and I was told to meet Mr. Hardy the Warden on the steps. There were two of us who wanted the job and we were ushered down the steps by him into what I now know as the Crypt. Having no experience in Boys’ Clubs, I was not sure what to look for, but the rooms that I was shown were quite large, and the equipment in them was to my liking… I could play both Table Tennis and Snooker.

I was lucky enough to get the job, and on the first few days the ex-assistant Warden was there to guide me. I soon found a few of the boys very friendly, and I was offered a cigarette. Funnily enough, it blew up in my face. I took this as being my initiation ceremony, and we all laughed it off as a big joke.

The first few months were very happy ones; gradually I was able to understand the boys and their different reasons for coming down to the Crypt. For those who do not know of the Club, I will try to explain why it was started, and what plans I have in mind in my term in office, towards the future of the Club.

The basic reason for the afternoon section of the Club is to keep the boys in the Hotel and Catering Trades off the streets in the hours of the afternoon between their morning and evening shifts. It seems that back in 1947 Probation officers in that district had numerous cases of boys in the trades getting into mischief.

Not long before I started school Dick Shepherd had left St Martin’s – but he was often to be seen in the churchyard which was used as a playground by the school, having a game of cricket with the boys …..  the churchyard was the playground for St Martin–in-the-Fields Elementary school which actually served the local children from 5 – 14, in a Georgian building founded in 1731 which is still standing …. The church yard saw all sorts of functions: lunch time cricket matches with the vicar yielding the bat, football for the boys and netball for the girls. (the church windows had a wire mesh over the windows); Empire Day pageants; school sports; and on 9th November, if it fell between a Monday and Friday, we pressed our noses against the railings and watched the Lord Mayor’s Show trace its way down the Strand. Later they gave the school a day off for the Lord Mayor’s Show. We also had Armistice day off as it fell on St Martin of Tours day and many of us would be in Trafalgar Square with our parents as the cannons signalled 11.00am.

My wife and I first met at The Centre youth club at 12 Adelaide Street in 1976.  I think it was part of St Martin-in-the-fields ministry.  Almost 50 years ago we wonder what happened to The Center.  We remember two leaders: Vicky and Louis Alexander, and an assistant called Kevin Wyatt-Lown.  This club was key to my survival, making friends, learning about life as I was 18 years old and didn’t know anyone my age in London having moved there from Dorset.