St. Martin Ludgate
Looking up Ludgate Hill from Ludgate Circus towards St. Paul’s Cathedral is one of the classic views of London, which has appeared in numerous paintings and photographs. Therefore, the spire of St. Martin’s, halfway up the hill on the left has often been represented. It largely remains as it was at the time it was rebuilt in the late 17th century.
Wren’s steeple of St. Martin Ludgate creates a distinctive view looking up the hill from Ludgate Circus towards St. Paul’s Cathedral in the distance, which was no doubt as Sir Christopher Wren intended.
Ludgate Hill is one of two hills on which the Romans built their city of Londinium. The street led west out through the Roman gate. The gate was later named after the mythical King Lud, who – defying what we now know – was thought to be the legendary King of Britain. The gate was rebuilt during the reign of Elizabeth, containing a statue of the Queen, which is now above the doorway of St. Dunstan in the West church. In the possession of the church is a silver model of the gate from that time, into which screws a silver figure of St. Martin.
St. Martin Ludgate (14) is shown immediately inside Ludgate and the city wall in Civitas Londinum (the ‘Agas map’) from about 1561.
According to another legend, contained within a 13th century chronicle, St. Martin’s may have been founded by the Welsh King Cadwalla in the 7th century (although at that time the city was largely deserted). Certainly, the church, standing a short distance inside the old city gate, and sometimes known as “within Ludgate”, was first recorded in around 1138. It is dedicated to the 4th century Bishop of Tours, a former Roman soldier who supressed the local Gallo-Roman religion in favour of Christianity and is said to have performed numerous miracles. Until the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, the church belonged to the Abbey and Convent of Westminster.
St. Martin’s was rebuilt in 1437. A storm in June 1561 was so severe that the spire of St. Paul’s Cathedral crashed to the ground and there was also damage to the steeple of St. Martin’s.
The church was destroyed in the Great Fire and completed in 1686. It was rebuilt with a symmetrical façade, with help from Robert Hooke. The Portland stone tower on the south frontage is topped with a tall lead steeple, comprising an ogre dome, lantern and obelisk spire. The west wall incorporates part of the old Roman wall and the north wall faces onto the Stationers’ Hall garden.
Ludgate Hill in the 1920s, when a railway bridge crossed the road. The tower and steeple of St. Martin’s is visible on the hill.
The interior is on the traditional east-west axis but that necessitated Wren having the entrance from Ludgate Hill on the side of the street. The site is broader north-south than east-west. To reduce the width of the body of the church to a square he created a spacious vestibule inside the doorway with a gallery above, which also shields the nave from the outside traffic noise. Above the vestibule and gallery is the tower. Four columns form the square into a Greek Cross within the square, similar to St. Anne and St. Agnes and St. Mary at Hill.
The stained glass was added during the Victorian period, leaving the interior darker than Wren would have intended. Unlike many other City churches, St. Martin’s survived the Blitz with only minor damage, and now contains one of Wren’s least-altered interiors with some fine woodwork. The tower and steeple stand above a large entrance lobby. It is now one of the City’s Guild churches for local workers and specialised weekend services. The parish was amalgamated into that of Holy Sepulchre.
Sources include:
- Stephen Miller ‘London’s City Churches’
- R.G. Ellen ‘A London Steeplechase’
- Tony Tucker ‘City of London Churches’
- Paul Rabbitts ‘Sir Christopher Wren’
