St Martin's Church in Canterbury holds a claim few buildings anywhere can match: it is the oldest continuously used Christian place of worship in the English-speaking world. Parts of the building are Roman, probably predating the arrival of Augustine in 597 AD by several centuries.

The story really begins with Queen Bertha of Frankia, who agreed to marry the pagan King Ethelbert of Kent only on condition that she could keep practising her faith. She brought her own priest, Luidhard, and worshipped at this small hilltop structure long before Augustine landed. When he arrived, sent by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the English, it was here that he made his base.

VoiceMap's Canterbury tour traces this founding moment in detail, explaining how Bertha's quiet act of faith made possible the entire conversion of England, and connecting the church to the Cathedral and St Augustine's Abbey as the third element of Canterbury's UNESCO World Heritage Site.