St Martin-in-the-Fields

Overlooking Trafalgar Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields is an Anglican parish church rebuilt in the 1720s by James Gibbs, whose fusion of a classical temple portico with a tall spire became a template copied across Britain and America. It has long served the homeless of central London and remains a busy centre of music, hosting candlelit concerts beneath its plaster ceiling. Below the nave, a vaulted crypt houses a café among old gravestones. Its royal connections and social mission still define it.