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St Martin's Place is a short stretch on the western edge of the district, running beside the open ground of Trafalgar Square and joining the top of Charing Cross to the start of Charing Cross Road. The National Portrait Gallery stands along its eastern side, and the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, from which the place takes its name, gives the immediate area its long ecclesiastical character. Traffic passes constantly at this junction, with pedestrians crossing between the square, the gallery entrance and the streets leading north into Covent Garden and Soho. The setting is more civic and monumental than commercial, shaped by public buildings, church frontages and the wide paved approaches that spill out from Trafalgar Square itself. Visitor footfall is heavy for most of the day, drawn by the gallery, the church and the square, and the pavements handle a steady mix of tourists, office workers and concert-goers heading for recitals held in the church. St Martin's Place works chiefly as a threshold between the ceremonial spaces around Trafalgar Square and the denser theatre and retail quarter to the east, and its identity rests on the institutions that frame it rather than on shops or restaurants.
