The Centenary of St Martin's 1911-2011

St Martin’s Church, in London Road, Worcesterhas just celebrated its Centenary. It was on 9th October in 1909 that the foundation stone was laid on the corner of Victoria Avenue and London Road. At the turn of the century there was a will in the city to build a much needed church in the area. After a Diocesan inquiry and much planning and fund raising, the Mission Church, now the Parish Centre, was built and dedicated in 1904 to provide a temporary place of worship whilst a church was built. So in 1909 the church, designed by architect G H Fellowes Prynne, costing over £10,000 and built by J & A Brazier, had its foundation stone laid by Lady Beauchamp, on a hugely festive occasion with a procession led by a brass band, with clergy, choirs and people from nearly every church in Worcester in attendance. It was to take nearly two years to complete the building work and the church was finally dedicated to St Martin on 8th June 1911.

One hundred years on, St Martin’s is celebrating 100 years of service to the community. To open the celebrations, there was a service on Sunday 4th October with a procession down London Road with brass band and the Bishop of Worcester presided at a service of thanksgiving. During the followingt 20 months there have been more events, socials, concerts, flower festivals and exhibitions in the church which culminated in another service on Saturday 11th June 2011 to celebrate the consecration..

Worcester News Reporter, Richard Vernalls, visited St Martin’s on Tuesday 29th September 2009 to obtain material and pictures for a two-page feature on the Centenary Celebrations which appeared on Thursday 1st October. This was well timed to coincide with the Flower Festival and Archive Exhibition which took place Friday 2nd October to Sunday 4th October, inclusive and the Special Service on Sunday morning.