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Martin-in-the-Fields
Location: St Martin-in-the-Fields, City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom
St Martin-in-the-Fields:
St Martin-in-the-Fields is an English and Chinese Anglican church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar
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| St Martin-in-the-Fields |
There has been a church on the site since the medieval period; the present building was constructed to a Neoclassical design by James Gibbs in 1722–1724.
History of St Martin-in-the-Fields:
The west front of St Martin’s has a portico with a pediment supported by a giant order of Corinthian columns, six wide. The order is continued around the church by pilasters. In designing the church, Gibbs was influenced by the works of Christopher Wren, but departed from Wren’s practice in his integration of the tower into the church. Rather than considering it as an adjunct to the main body of the building, he constructed it within its west wall, so that it rises above the roof, immediately behind the portico, an arrangement previously used by John James at St George, Hanover Square (1712–24), though James’ steeple was much less ambitious. The spire of St Martin’s rises 192 feet above the level of the church floor.
The church is rectangular in plan, with the five-bay nave divided from the aisles by arcades of Corinthian columns. There are galleries over both aisles and at the west end. The nave ceiling is a flattened barrel vault, divided into panels by ribs. The panels are decorated with cherubs, clouds, shells and scroll work, by Giuseppe Artari and Bagutti.
Until the creation of Trafalgar Square in the 1820s, Gibbs’s church was crowded in by other buildings. J.P. Malcolm, writing in 1807, said that the its west front “would have a grand effect if the execrable watch-house and sheds before it were removed” and described the sides of the church as “lost in courts, where houses approach them almost to contact“.
The design was criticised widely at the time, but subsequently became extremely famous, being copied particularly widely in the United States. In India, St Andrews Church, Egmore, Madras (now Chennai) is a copy of this church.
Various 18th-century notables were soon buried in the new church, including the émigré sculptor Roubiliac (who had settled in this area of London) and the furniture-maker Thomas Chippendale (whose workshop was in the same street as the church, St Martin's Lane), along with Jack Sheppard in the now lost adjoining churchyard.
The church also had its own almhouses and pension-charity, established on 21 September 1886. Its 19 trustees administered almshouses for women, providing them with a weekly stipend. The almshouses were built in 1818 on part of the parish burial ground in Camden Town and St Pancras and replaced ones built in 1683..........Wikipedia >>
