St Martin in the Fields

James Gibbs completed St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1726, and his solution to an awkward problem — a classical temple portico with a steeple rising behind it — was copied so widely, in England and still more in colonial America, that it became a type. The church has never been only a church. Its crypt sheltered Londoners in two wars, its social work is as old as its music, and its acoustic has made it one of the busiest concert buildings in the capital, with lunchtime recitals and candlelit evening programmes running through the year. In 1958 Neville Marriner gathered a group of players here; they took the church's name, and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields became one of the most recorded chamber orchestras in the world. On the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square, with the Baroque repertoire still near the centre of what is heard inside, it remains a rare instance of a parish church that gave its name to an orchestra.