Saint Martin

The restoration of the nave, west portal and organ will run from 2024 to February 2027 (phase 10). During the works, the building may sometimes be temporarily less accessible. Information on the accessibility of St Martin's Church can be found on the deanery's website or on the tourisme website.

Kerknet

The Collegial Church of Saint Martin is a vast Brabant Gothic edifice, remarkable for the homogeneity of its style despite a construction period of 180 years (1480–1660). 

It reflects the social organisation of past centuries, when guilds and brotherhoods erected their own chapels. Today, 21 chapels with richly decorated altars remain. In the Brewers’ Chapel, a large carved wooden altarpiece contains a Rubens painting showing Saint Roch receiving from Christ the gift of healing plague victims (1623).

Although the church is incomplete—two thirds of the nave, the tower and the portal were never built—it still conveys impressive grandeur and simplicity. A copper meridian line from 1840 marks noon: a lens in the stained glass window of Saint Martin directs a beam of light onto the line, allowing clocks and watches to be set.

The choir features a fine high altar carved by Janssens (1775) and a splendid tabernacle by J. Duquesnoy and his sons (1605). In the right transept, an 18th century carved and painted bench draws attention. 

The ambulatory is rich in treasures: in the fourth chapel lies the tombstone of Dirk Martens, “the first printer of Germany, France and the Low Countries.” In the Rosary Chapel, the painted vaults from 1497 stand out. 

The winter chapel, arranged in a former sacristy, contains a small triptych of The Adoration of the Magi and remnants of the old Holy Sacrament turret.

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