The Church of St. Martin in Canterbury is England's oldest parish church in continuous use. It was here that St. Augustine set up his mission when he arrived from Rome in 597 AD to convert the English.

St. Martin's was the private chapel of Queen Bertha of Kent in the 6th Century before St. Augustine arrived from Rome. Queen Bertha was a Christian Frankish princess who arrived in England with her Chaplain, Bishop Liudhard. King Ethelberht of Kent, her husband, allowed her to continue to practice her religion in an existing church, which the Venerable Bede says had been in use in the late Roman period but had fallen into disuse. There is a strong possibility that this church is St. Martin's, especially since Bede names it.

Local finds prove that Christianity did exist in this area of the city at the time, and the church contains many reused Roman bricks, as well as complete sections of walls of Roman tiles. Several sections of walls are clearly very early, and it is possible that a blocked square-headed doorway in the chancel was the entrance to Bertha's church.

See visitor pamphlet here.

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