Trafalgar Square, now happily cleared of traffic, has been revived as the real centre of London, a gathering place and a photo studio for tourists still happy to see the pigeons that the mayor has tried so hard to drive off. Standing tall at its height is the National Gallery, looking down towards the sentinel Nelson. Were this the Continent, its inevitable church would be, if not in this spot, then certainly nicely aligned with it. But this is London, with its ancient liberties and rights, so St Martin-in-the-Field, with its grand classical frontage, is tucked off to the side, at an odd angle, fine, but less than finely displayed.
As A.R. Hope Moncrieff explained in 1910: “At the date of Nelson’s crowning victory, a narrow, dirty lane of mean houses led by the Church of St Martin’s, that once could be rightly described as ‘in the fields’. ‘Hedge Lane’ too, ran north beyond the site of the National Gallery, not begun until 1832; and about this time the square came to be cleared from unsightly buildings known as the King’s Mews.”
But St Martin still manages to cut an imposing figure, one that will be familiar to many American and Irish visitors, for its Italian-trained Scottish architect, James Gibb, with his influential The Book of Architecture, set the pattern for a whole generation of ecclestiastical structures.
Inside it is an attractive, restrained English baroque; the plaster scallops and swirls (by the Italian plasterers Giovanni Bagutti and Guiseppe Arturi) covering the grand barrel-vault ceiling are balanced by the sober gravity of the mainly plain oak pews; the overall cream theme allowing the Corinthian capitals, picked out in red and gold, to really shine. The lack – with a couple of royal-linked exceptions – of personal memorials in the aisles give it a neat unity not seen in many London churches.
The church was consecrated on October 20, 1726, with the steeple being rung in the following year. George I became a churchwarden, the only time a monarch has held that office – but he elected to provide an organ rather than carry out his duties. He probably already attended enough meetings. The close ties the church enjoys to royalty are marked by the royal arms over the entrance and the royal box on the left of the high altar. From it hangs a royal flag, which is matched on the right by a Royal Navy White ensign and the box of the Admiralty board. In the heart of Theatreland there’s something rather balanced about the existence of these structures.
Yet this has always been a people’s church, and it has today a highly active social programme, helping the homeless, recognising that with the wealth of the West End also comes great deprivation, and sometimes degradation. For this too has traditionally been a prostitutes’ church. The London Spy reported on the original congregation of this structure: “The inhabitants are now supplied with a decent tabernacle, which can produce as handsome a show of white hands, diamond rings, pretty snuff boxes, and gilt prayer books as any cathedral whatever. Here, the fair penitents pray in their patches, sue for pardon in their paint, and see their heaven in man.”
At the top of the stairs to the crypt is a slab recording attempts to impose 18th-century order in the church – in 1773 the vestry ordered that “no Graves be Dug in any of the Waults of the Church as a Practice thereof will be Prejudicial to and in time Endanger the Foundation”. The following year came the direction that any “Corps” buried in the vaults under the church be “in Leaden Coffins”.
The crypt, which houses a decent self-service cafe and one of the best souvenir shops in London – you can do better than that old “all I got was this lousy T-shirt” – is worth visiting even if you don’t plan to eat or shop. And remember to look down, for there are some lovely 18th-century memorials under your feet.
The old brick vaults have a glorious simple symmetry and one of the often-missed delights – hidden at the very back of the brass-rubbing centre (walk through it in the direction of the National Gallery) – is a small but exquisite collection of 17th-century memorials from the Tudor structure that this church replaced.
Among them is that recording the burial of Johanna, “eldest daughter of John Miller, late of Netten, Wallop in ye County of Southhampton, esq, deceased, and of Esther, his wife; since wife and now relict of ye Rt Hon. Lord Henry Powlett, decesased, who departed this life ye 15th day of February 1673”. Johanna’s mother was certainly a woman going up in the world.
But there’s no memorial for probably the most notorious burial of this era – that of the Court dressmaker Anne Turner, who was buried here after she was hanged in 1615 for her part in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury by Frances Howard Countess of Essex. Nor, it seems does the memorial of Nell Gwynn, the “Protestant whore” of Charles II, who was buried here, survive.
Links: A history of the church. There are free tours on Thursdays at 11.30.
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