EVERYBODY was invited to see the start of two year’s labour to build the city’s new church on that day in 1909. The ladies wore their best hats and dresses, while the gentleman of the congregation grinned under their fashionable moustaches.

Youngsters frolicked as the brass band came marching down the hill, leading choristers, churchmen and dignitaries to the site of the foundation stone, off the main London Road.

People from the proudest glove-makers and railwaymen to well-heeled city industrialists had dug deep to raise the £10,000 for Worcester’s new church.

It would be the wife of one such supporter, Lady Beauchamp, who, wielding a silver trowel, would ceremonially lay the first heavy stone block.

St Martin’s rector the Rev Canon Ken Boyce said: “We all know people who were there that day.

“They’re all gone now, but 100 years is almost within living memory.”

Among the last to remember the occasion had been parishioner Ethel Jones, aged 99, who died eight years ago.

She was just an excited young girl at the time.

“She remembered the band and sense of occasion,” said Mr Boyce.

To mark the laying of the stone, the church is hosting three days of celebration starting Friday and ending with a procession led by the Bishop of Worcester along London Road to the church at 9.30am for 9.45am on Sunday.

Inside, the church will be decked with flowers thanks to the hard work of volunteer arrangers and the ladies of St Martin’s Flower Fellowship, while a display on this important piece of spiritual and architectural history will feature exhibits from the church’s earliest days.

They will be celebrating the first important phase of the church’s construction, focusing on the men and women who raised the huge amount of cash and those who prayed among its pews.

The church’s Victorian design, built of brick and clad in local sandstone, is not unique, with at least one other similar building in Bournemouth.

But as with all things, the history of its birth is unique. That history forms a core of the events over the three days with an exhibition of archive material, open along with the church between 10am and 5pm, Friday and Saturday.

David Scott and his wife Shirley have put together the information which forms the exhibition.

“A church was needed and originally this would have replaced Old St Martin’s Church in the Cornmarket,” said Mr Scott. “They were going to close Old St Martin’s afterwards but it never happened, hence the confusion sometimes.

“A church commission was set up looking at all churches in Worcester and it was decided to open a new church to serve the growing community.”

Once that decision was made, the Mission Church, now the parish centre, in Victoria Avenue, was built and dedicated in 1904 to provide a temporary place of worship while a church was built.

The new church solved a practical problem, with the city’s population burgeoning and terraced homes sprouting in Wyld’s Lane and nearby to house workers drawn to the busy factories such as Lea and Perrins.

The archive includes information about the people who lived in nearby streets such as Victoria Avenue, Sebright Avenue and Wyld’s Lane. Mrs Scott said: “We found reference to people whose occupation was viceman – who worked on the railways – and clickers, who worked in shoe factories to cut the leather.”

There are also several photos of the foundation stone being laid and pictures of the original architect’s drawings by G H Fellowes Prynne.

These show that the church was supposed to have a spire, but the project ran out of money and it was never built.

There are also details of the great city men of the day who supported the construction including William Barnitt, a company director at Lea and Perrins, who put forward £1,000 towards the costs and paid £400 for the church’s sandstone cladding. There’s a stained glass window in his honour in the church.

His boss, Charles William Dyson Perrins, also gave £500 to the church, while a city solicitor who owned the land, JS Stallard, gave it to the church for construction.

Before his death, the then Bishop of Worcester John Stewart Perowne also granted a Bible to the church which will also be displayed.

Doors opened in 1911, after construction was finished by builders J A Brazier.

In recent years, a baptistry was added by the descendants of the Braziers and the church added the name of St Peter’s church which stood in Sidbury until demolition in the 1970s.

Until recently, the sign above what was then the church’s only toilets would have delighted curiosity hunters. It read: “Canons, Reverends and other gentlemen only.”

The church now has refurbished and modern facilities inside and the ceaseless task of upkeep continues, according to church warden and former principal of Pershore College Bill Simpson.

“We had some tiles fall off last year. But when we went up to fix them we actually found the wooden bell tower was falling apart so it’s had to be replaced,” he said.

With all that history behind them, parishioners could be forgiven for wondering what lies ahead in the next century but Rev Boyce won’t be drawn too far into the future.

He said: “It wouldn’t be fair to dictate to the people who came after us. But if we can get it right in the next generation, then fine.”

There is a “strong musical and choral tradition” in the church with the forthcoming centenary concert featuring music of classic music past starting at 7.30pm on Saturday, October 24.

The organ was refurbished for the millennium at a cost of £60,000.

The social committee keeps strong community ties by organising outings and hosting events, while the fund-raising committee constantly works to keep the church in good order. A team of volunteer flower arrangers led by Carol Currie, deputy church warden, works hard to keep the church blooming and the parish magazine has 400 subscribers.

There is also a strong missionary tradition with ties to a Georgian orphanage, a hospital in Egypt and links with churches in the Middle East, Cyprus and South America Mr Boyce said the church had a strong place in its Worcester home. He said: “I would like it to continue as a place of prayer and worship. It should be a place to worship God but also to keep and rediscover what this community needs from its church. The houses about here used to be homes to glovers but there are now many people from the Pakistani community who, as Muslims, are not going to be looking to this church for worship, so our relationship with them will be built on a different basis. But they are part of our community and that is who we serve.”

For more details of centenary events leading up to 2011, call the church on 01905 358083 or visit stmartinsworcester.org.uk.