St Martin in the Fields Church of England, Liverpool

The first stone of Saint Martin in the Fields was lain on 28th October 1828 and Consecrated on 13th January 1829. The Goverment had this church erected at the expense of £20.000. The entire height of the steeple was 22 feet. The extreme length of the church from east to west was 142 feet, and the width was 75 feet. The front of the chancel was embellished with a special Gothic arch. The steeple was 22 feet high. It was built of redish sandstone but it turned black because of the industrial area, (an Irish dye works was the main culprit for this)and it got the nick name of THE BLACK CHURCH. It was built on Great Oxford Street North, (now St Silvester Street). There was seating for 2000 parishoners.

Jim Fearns' memories of the church:

St Martin in the Fields was also affectingly known as The Black Church. It's graveyard was surrounded by four streets - Silvester St, Vauxhall Rd, Blenheim St (This is where I lived), and Limkiln Lane. St Martins was bombed during the blitz but I think it closed well before this. St Martins was bombed during the blitz but I think it closed well before this. The graves were moved to St Mary's Walton and some of the cemetery was made into a childrens playground and bowling green. The church itself remained a shell for years until it was demolished about 1952/54.

This site provides historical information about churches, other places of worship and cemeteries. It has no connection with the churches etc. themselves.

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)