Church of St Martin

Church of St Martin

This is a parish church of outstanding architectural importance, with origins in the 11th century (Saxo-Norman period). The chancel was extended in the 13th century, and the chapel and aisles were added in the 13th and 14th centuries. The western tower dates from between 1507 and 1557, as evidenced by surviving wills. The battlements were added in 1911. The church was restored in 1876 by Sir Arthur Blomfield, with later work also undertaken. It is constructed of ragstone, squared and hammer-dressed, particularly to the tower, with plain tiled roofs.

The building comprises a chancel with a south chapel, a nave, and a south aisle with a south porch, all dominated by a large western tower of three stages. The tower rises to its full height with string courses and offset buttresses. An octagonal north-eastern angle vice (staircase) is positioned at this corner. The belfry openings are arranged in three tiers with two tiers of openings, single lights on the second stage, and a deep-set restored three-light Perpendicular window to the west. This west window is flanked by canopied niches with cusped quatrefoil panels and an ogee-headed niche below. A four-centred arched doorway with a label hood sits beneath, accompanied by a waterstoup and flanking quatrefoil panels. The nave has a separately roofed south aisle with a projecting vestry. The south porch is of 19th-century date with timberwork. The north nave wall retains buttresses and the blocked, exposed jambs of round-headed 11th-century windows, along with a blocked north door, while the fenestration is 19th-century. The chancel likewise has 19th-century windows, though its restored Perpendicular five-light east window retains the jambs of 13th-century lancets beneath. The projecting south chapel has lancet windows.

Interior

The interior contains a fine, tall tower arch with continuous wave moulding and attached inner piers with octagonal capitals. A four-centred arched door to the north provides access to the stair vice. The south aisle features a late 13th-century two-bay arcade with a round pier and octagonal responds. The nave roof features scissor-braced rafters in two levels, partly with tie-beams. The south aisle, with its western vestry, has massive walls and a re-used timber ceiling identified as the base of an 11th-century south-western tower; a blocked lancet window opens between the vestry and aisle. A lancet in the gable of the south chapel has a double chamfered arch below, supported on corbels. The south chapel roof is a tenoned purlin roof. A rood passage door opens to the south, with another at gallery level to the nave. The chancel arch is restored with a double chamfered profile on octagonal corbels carved with heads. The east end displays exposed jambs of lancet windows with shafts and capitals, as well as the exposed jambs of the original 11th-century chancel before its 13th-century extension. The 19th-century nave roof incorporates scissor-bracing.

Fittings and Contents

The chancel contains 14th-century sedilia and a priest's door with cusped ogee heads, roses in cusped spandrels enriched with foliage and heraldic motifs, and embattled tops. Iron twist-turned altar rails with a moulded top rail are fitted throughout. Choir stalls, probably inserted for use by the Archbishop of Canterbury's entourage while in residence at his adjacent hunting lodge, date to the 15th century and have been partly restored. They feature poppy head bench ends and arcaded panels to the front. The south range incorporates an open screen to the south chapel with four bays of ogee tracery, a brattished top rail, and a four-centred arched doorway. The north range has simple boarded panelling, and the western range incorporates the base of the nave rood screen. Misericords, mainly decorated with foliage, appear on the south range, where they combine foliage with castle imagery. The south chapel contains 17th-century arcaded panelling with Mannerist pilasters, a strapwork frieze, and a separate panel inscribed "AN 1617 WK . RA . WF . C" with lozenge and guilloche decoration. A third section with differing design adorns the west wall. All this panelling was introduced in the late 19th century and may have originated from the demolished Scott's Hall, Smeeth. The nave contains two 17th-century pulpits with panelled walls featuring strapwork, geometric panels, and foliate enrichment. The northern pulpit is of two tiers and appears to have been assembled from domestic panels; it incorporates a wooden relief panel of a Pelican in her Piety, said to have come from Pattison's Farmhouse, Aldington. A 12th-century square font bowl rests on five piers, with a 17th-century wooden cover featuring an arcaded base with detached Ionic colonettes, modillion cornice, and a finial carrying an ogee-scrolled lantern with finial. A wrought iron gate and screen to the tower, dated 1891, was removed from Olantigh Towers, Wye, and installed here by Sir Reginald Blomfield.

Monuments and Glass

Brasses include a small inscription to Margaret Blechynden (died 1596) in the south chapel and another to John Weddcot (died 1475). A pair of 19-inch brasses depict an armoured knight and lady; the reverse records George Sibley of Boston (died 1474). A black and white marble wall plaque to John Blechynden (died 1607) features a scrolled and enriched base, a simple aedicule with an arms cartouche above, and a Latin hexameter inscription. Glass fragments remain in the chancel north window.

Historical Significance

The church's architectural quality and medieval richness reflect its use as a chapel to the adjacent hunting lodge of the Archbishops of Canterbury. This association is underscored by the appointment of notable ecclesiastical figures as rectors: Thomas Linacre (from 1509), who founded the Royal College of Surgeons, and Desiderius Erasmus, briefly in 1511.

The Reverend George Blomfield served as Rector from 1868. He was the brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Blomfield, the architect who restored the church in 1876, and the father of Sir Reginald Blomfield, who further embellished the church and designed the lychgate.