S is for St Martin’s Church
This small gem of a church might well be called the cradle of English Christianity. It is situated on the slope of a hill just outside the city walls and to the West of St. Augustine’s Abbey. St Martin’s Church was Queen Bertha’s chapel before Augustine’s arrival on a mission from Rome in AD 597. Bertha was a French Princess who had married King Ethelbert the local Saxon Bretwalda or ‘strong man’. It is the oldest parish church in continuous use in the English-speaking world.
The current chancel encapsulates the remains of the original church made of Roman bricks. The Roman occupation lasted from around AD100 — AD 410. Surviving structures of Roman bricks in Britain are rare. Here Augustine, Ethelbert (once converted to Christianity by Augustine) and Bertha prayed as the Cathedral and Abbey projects were planned. The planting of the Priory inside the city walls with its cathedral church and the large abbey outside the walls was instrumental over the centuries in Canterbury becoming one of the great holy places in Christendom. St Martin’s church is the mother church of the cathedral which in turn, following the Reformation, became the mother church of what was to become the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The church is named for St Martin of Tours, possibly named thus by Bertha. St Martin is remembered amongst other things for halving his cloak to give to a poor man in the cold.
St Martin’s was built in different phases. The chancel is the original late Roman to the 6th century building . The Saxon nave with its characterful exposed West wall was added in the 7th century and a bell tower in medieval times (during 11–12thcenturies). One of the existing bells dates back to 1393 so it has rung for it over six centuries. The Norman font is a well-head and comes from the cathedral. It is decorated by an interlinking ring design. The building of the nave, large by Saxon standards and limited in part by the site being on a hill may well be in honour of the fact that this was St Augustine’s first place of worship.
Amongst the clergy who worked and worshiped here in late Saxon times were bishops. One was called Eadsige who later became Archbishop. Much later a small grammar school operated from within the church.
The churchyard contains the graves of several notables, including Mary Tourtel , the artist and author-creator of Rupert Bear, and Thomas Sidney Cooper, the famous Victorian animal and landscape artist, who painted rural scenes around Canterbury, many with the cathedral as a backdrop. Treasure Trove in the form of “The St Martin’s Hoard” was excavated in the churchyard in 1844. A golden medalet with a head and name of Bishop Luidhard ( Bertha’s Chaplain) created a direct archaeological link to the church’s early origins. The hoard is kept at Liverpool Museums.
Together the Cathedral, St Augustine’s Abbey and the St Martin’s Church comprise the Canterbury UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Canterbury Christ Church University sits within the curtain wall of the Abbey. Current building development at university will use the towers of St Martin’s and the Cathedral to provide a powerful East West focus.
Today St Martin’s is a friendly working parish church linked to the Parish of St Paul without the walls. There is a weekly Sunday service. Access to the church varies through the year. It is kept open to meet its UNESCO obligations by a rota of dedicated volunteer church sitters.
Michael Butler MA FRSA is St Martin’s Church UNESCO representative. This entry is written with thanks to Martin Taylor’s 1997 guide; details can be found on the website for St Martin’s and St Paul’s.
The University will also be hosting a two-day conference on Canterbury and other UNESCO World Heritage Sites around the world on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 May at Old Sessions House, Longport.
