JAYNE LLOYD

PHOTOGRAPHER

COMMISSION: PORTRAIT EXHIBITION AT ST MARTIN-IN-THE-FIELDS, TRAFALGAR SQUARE

I was commissioned to create a series of 15 photographic portraits as part of ‘St Martin-in-the-Fields: 300 Years at the Heart and on the Edge‘, a new exhibition celebrating 300 years of St Martin’s stories.

The inspiration for the photographic commission was the sketchbook of artist and congregant Vanessa Tinker, which was donated to St Martin’s when she died in 2019 and captured the many reasons people come inside: to sit, pray, work, rehearse, rest, wait and sleep. With St Martin’s Archivist Louisa Price, we asked the questions ‘Why did you come? Why have you stayed?’ and the portraits and responses are now on display along the railings on Duncannon Street, on the edge of Trafalgar Square.

The free exhibition in The Crypt, made possible thanks to The National Lottery Heritage Fund, includes a wide range of fascinating objects and incredible stories about the iconic church in Trafalgar Square, the ‘church of the ever open door’, where London’s first free lending library was launched and to where the origins of the Big Issue, Amnesty International and Shelter can all be traced.

St Martin-in-the-Fields: 300 Years at the Heart and on the Edge

24 June – 15 November 2026
St Martin-in-the-Fields
Trafalgar Square
London
WC2N 4JJ

Photograph taken from above and behind a person sitting in dark wooden pews, wearing a beige linen jacket, resting their arm on the side and their hand on their face.

From the series 'My St Martin's', commissioned as part of the 'St Martin-in-the-Fields: 300 Years at the Heart and on the Edge' exhibition at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London. Photograph by Jayne Lloyd. From the series 'My St Martin's', commissioned as part of the 'St Martin-in-the-Fields: 300 Years at the Heart and on the Edge' exhibition at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London. Photograph by Jayne Lloyd.

‘I have always come in here since I was a child. I like coming here for reflection, to pray and to think. It’s my favourite church to come and reflect.’ - Liv. From the series 'My St Martin's', commissioned as part of the 'St Martin-in-the-Fields: 300 Years at the Heart and on the Edge' exhibition at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London. Photograph by Jayne Lloyd.

My St Martin's, a photographic series by Jayne Lloyd, inspired by the sketchbook of Vanessa Tinker, on display at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. Photograph by Jayne Lloyd.

My St Martin's. St Martin-in-the-Fields. Photograph by Jayne Lloyd.

COMMISSION: PORTRAIT EXHIBITION AT ST MARTIN-IN-THE-FIELDS, TRAFALGAR SQUARE

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