What is the oldest church in England?
The usual answer, and the best one, is St Martin's Church in Canterbury. It is widely recognised as the oldest church in continuous use in the English-speaking world. Queen Bertha of Kent, a Frankish Christian princess, was already worshipping here in the 580s, before St Augustine arrived from Rome in 597 and made it his first base. The walls contain reused Roman brick, and services have been held on the site ever since. Together with Canterbury Cathedral and the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey, St Martin's forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, yet it remains an ordinary parish church where you can simply turn up on a Sunday.
The oldest churches in England: the key survivors
- St Martin's, Canterbury, Kent (6th century).The oldest of them all, in use since before Augustine's mission, with Roman brickwork visible in the chancel walls.
- St Peter-on-the-Wall, Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex (about 654). A tall, plain barn of a chapel built by St Cedd across the gateway of the abandoned Roman fort of Othona, using its stone. It stands alone by the Essex marshes at the end of a track, and the walk out to it is one of the great pilgrimages in England.
- Escomb Church, County Durham (7th century). Probably built between about 670 and 690, largely from stone taken from the Roman fort at Binchester, and one of the most complete Anglo-Saxon churches anywhere. Its tall, narrow nave gives the best impression in the country of what an early Saxon church felt like.
- All Saints', Brixworth, Northamptonshire (7th century). Founded as a monastery around the 670s, Brixworth is often described as the largest Anglo-Saxon building to survive substantially intact, its great arches turned in reused Roman brick.
- St Laurence's, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire (Saxon, date debated). A tiny, austere chapel linked by tradition to St Aldhelm around 700, though much of the surviving fabric is thought to be later Saxon work. It was only recognised for what it was in the nineteenth century, having spent years hidden among cottages and used as a school.
Other churches keep substantial early fabric too, among them St Mary's at Reculver in Kent (founded 669, now a ruin), the Saxon tower at Earls Barton and the crypts built by St Wilfrid at Ripon and Hexham in the 670s, which survive beneath much later churches.
What does "oldest" actually mean?
Every claim about the oldest churches in England depends on what you are measuring, and it helps to keep three ideas apart.
- Oldest foundation. The date Christian worship began on the site. Many churches claim a foundation far older than any stone they contain, since the first buildings were often timber and have vanished entirely.
- Oldest fabric. The date of the actual standing walls. Escomb and Bradwell score highly here because so much of the original seventh-century building survives.
- Continuous use.Whether worship has carried on without a break. This is St Martin's trump card: it is not just old, it has never stopped being a church.
A church can lead on one measure and trail on another, which is why sensible guides, including this one, prefer careful phrasing to a single league table.
How to spot Saxon and Norman work
Once you know the signs, you can date rough centuries of church fabric at a glance, and thousands of ordinary parish churches hide early work in a tower or a doorway.
- Saxon (before 1066). Tall, narrow proportions; small round-headed or triangular-headed windows; long-and-short stone quoins at the corners; thin pilaster strips of stone decorating towers, as at Earls Barton; herringbone masonry; and reused Roman brick or tile in the walls.
- Norman (11th to 12th century). Massive round arches, walls often more than a metre thick, drum-like columns, and doorways carved with zigzag chevron patterns. The finest Norman parish work rivals the cathedrals in richness.
- Beware Victorian restoration. Nineteenth-century architects rebuilt many churches so thoroughly that apparent medieval work is sometimes a confident copy. Church guidebooks, usually on sale inside for a pound or two, are honest about this.
What is the oldest church in London?
Two churches share the honours, depending once again on your measure. All Hallows by the Tower was founded around 675 from Barking Abbey, making it the oldest church foundation in the City of London, and a Saxon arch built with reused Roman tile still stands inside, though bombing in the Second World War meant much of the church was rebuilt afterwards. St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, founded in 1123 by the courtier-turned-monk Rahere, is generally counted London's oldest surviving parish church building, its dark Norman interior a favourite of filmmakers. Both are open to visitors and both remain working churches; see our wider guide to churches in London.
What is the oldest church in the UK?
Beyond England the picture stretches even further back, though the buildings themselves are generally younger. In Scotland, Whithorn in Galloway is held to be the cradle of Scottish Christianity, where St Ninian is said to have founded his Candida Casa around the year 400, though the visible remains are of later churches. The oldest complete church building in regular use in Scotland is often said to be St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle, from the early twelfth century. In Wales, hundreds of llan sites were founded by the Celtic saints of the sixth century, St David among them, but the surviving churches on those sites are almost all medieval rebuildings. So the fairest summary is this: the UK's oldest Christian sites are in Scotland and Wales, but the oldest church building still in use is English, and it is St Martin's in Canterbury.
Visiting England's oldest churches
- St Martin's Canterbury is normally open to visitors on regular days each week and for Sunday worship, and entry is free.
- St Peter-on-the-Wall is reached by a walk of about ten minutes from the nearest car park at Bradwell-on-Sea. It is generally open daily and unstaffed, which is a large part of its magic.
- Escomb's key arrangement is famously trusting: when the church is locked, a notice in the porch tells you where to collect the key nearby.
- These are small, fragile buildings. Leave a donation, sign the visitors' book and avoid touching ancient plaster or carvings.
- The best visits pair an ancient church with its county: explore churches in Kent around Canterbury, churches in Essex for Bradwell, and churches in County Durham for Escomb and the Wear valley.
Keep exploring
The Saxon survivors are only the beginning of the story. For the medieval parish churches, the listing system and advice on visiting well, read our guide to historic churches in Britain. For the great diocesan churches that followed, from Canterbury's foundation in 597 to the completion of Liverpool in 1978, see our complete guide to cathedrals in England. And if reading about fourteen centuries of continuous worship makes you want to join in, use the directory to find a church near you this Sunday.