To spot St Martin’s Church, just look ahead for a rugged old stone building with a blunt, flat-topped tower and a blue door behind an iron fence-it almost looks as if history itself has stopped for a quick rest here!
Imagine you’re standing right at the edge of Colchester’s long and twisting history. In front of you, St Martin’s Church rises from the ground with its thick walls of rough flint, the surface pitted and flecked with stone and hidden pieces of ancient Roman rubble-like a giant’s patchwork house. The sunlight sneaks through the gaps in the trees and glances off the old gravestones, some of which lean sideways as though they’ve grown tired after centuries of standing watch.
Now picture this church back in the 12th century. The bells would have rung out from its tall, proud tower-until the English Civil War crashed through in 1648. That’s when the tower took a beating, leaving it broken and stunted, which is why it looks like the top’s been lopped off with a giant sword. People say a church can be a survivor, but this one really tested that theory! After the Civil War, things got even rougher. By the 1700s, a local historian named Philip Morant wrote that St Martin’s was “ruinous,” as if it were a haunted relic where only the wind dared whisper.
But-plot twist! In the 19th century, a renaissance of hope arrived. An architect named Giles Gilbert Scott came along and revealed the wagon-shaped roof over the chancel: a hidden masterpiece above your head, left to dazzle in the filtered light. Though another grand restoration was dreamed up by Rev Ernest Geldart, it never made it past the drawing board, and the church slowly faded back into neglect. It was even declared officially redundant in the 1950s-imagine being put out to grass after nearly 900 years of service!
Yet St Martin’s wasn’t finished. For thirty years, the old church rang with laughter and applause-yes, it became a theatre! But then, structural trouble loomed, and the church seemed destined for another sad ending... until the Churches Conservation Trust swooped in during the 1990s, a team of modern-day knights. They patched the building, scrubbed away decades of black paint, restored the ancient tiled plaques, and brought back the glory of the barrel-vaulted roof-plus added some wheelchair ramps for good measure.
Today, as you stand here, it’s lively once more and home to the Orthodox congregation from St Helen’s Chapel. So, take a deep breath and imagine all those voices-prayers, laughter, drama, and song-echoing through these ancient stones. If you look closely, you’ll even spot a mysterious green man carved above the chancel arch, grinning down on everyone as if he’s been in on every secret, every joke, and every rescue all this time. Now that’s what I call sticking around for the encore!
