St. Martin's Church

very gothic style and good combination with modern building around.

great church lively worship and very friendly staff on the help desk. it is open all week and is amazing.

I am in no way religious, so was surprised to hear myself agreeing to visit St. Martins Church in Birmingham City Centre with a friend recently. The church is hundreds of years old and the stunning gothic appearance of the church stands out beautifully next to the ultra modern Bullring and surrounding stores.

The church is open to the public daily from 10am - 5pm, although this is a working church so be aware there are services at various times throughout the day. You may wish to attend (or avoid!) these so do get in touch with the church before your visit to check the times of the services.

The church is huge inside, even bigger than the outside would suggest. It’s light and airy inside thanks to the large windows and appropriate lighting, the stained glass windows are absolutely gorgeous and really do stand out as the focal point of the church. The light coming through the largest window is beautifully fragmented in the different colours and it gives a wonderful effect.

It was done out a few years ago inside and now the interior seems much larger than it did when I visited as a child. The pews are beautiful and have been arranged to make the most of the space inside the church, it’s easy to wander around and take in all the aspects of the decor. I found the church was fairly busy but it’s so big inside that we didn’t feel hemmed in with lots of other people and everyone kept themselves to themselves while looking around.

One thing to look out for is the gorgeous font, it has quite a contemporary design and was made in 2003. It’s totally unlike any font I’ve seen before and although it has an extremely modern look it still manages to stay in keeping with the rest of the churches interior. It also has a soothing water feature effect, although I’m not sure die-hard Christians would appreciate me describing it like this!

I’m surprised to say I really enjoyed my visit to St. Martins Church, it was so calm and peaceful inside that I could almost see why people choose to spend their Sunday mornings in church! Me, I’d rather be at a car boot sale!

We had a cup of coffee in the St. Martins Church cafe and could also have had something to eat, but we’d already decided to go to Pizza Hut so didn’t dare eat anything here. The cakes in particular looked absolutely delicious so if I come again, and I probably will bring the kids over the holidays, then I shall definitely be sampling one of these.