A short walk from Canterbury Cathedral, up a lane and through a crowded churchyard, stands a building far less imposing and, in one respect, far more remarkable. St Martin's is recognised as the oldest parish church in the English-speaking world still in regular use. Its walls contain reused Roman brick, and the church was already standing when Queen Bertha, a Christian Frankish princess married to the pagan king of Kent, used it for her own worship — the setting in which Augustine's mission began its work when it arrived from Rome. From that base the conversion of Anglo-Saxon England was launched, and it is for this reason that St Martin's is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with the cathedral and the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey. The building itself is modest: a nave and chancel of patched masonry, a plain font, memorials worn smooth, a churchyard of leaning stones. The film reads that fabric closely, showing how much history a small parish church can hold, and follows a congregation that still meets in it every week.
