St Martin's is the parish church of Bowness and predates the tourist town that grew up around it by several centuries. The building dates substantially from the fifteenth century, though there has been a church on the site since at least the twelfth. It sits slightly set back from the main strip, in the older part of Bowness around St Martin's Square, and the surrounding lanes give a sense of what the village looked like before the Victorian holiday trade arrived.
The east window is the main thing to see inside. It is a large composite window assembled from medieval glass that includes fragments from Cartmel Priory and possibly Furness Abbey, both damaged during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s. There is a tradition — difficult to verify — that one of the figures depicts the Virgin Mary drawn from a local woman, though art historians have been cautious about this claim. The church is usually open during the day and is worth ten minutes of anyone's time, particularly to escape the crowds on the promenade.