The History of the church of King Charles the Martyr, Tunbridge Wells
The parish church of King Charles the Martyr began life as a small chapel serving the summer inland resort of Tunbridge Wells, and was the first substantial building at the Wells, close to the Walks. It opened in 1678, money for construction having been raised through a subscription fund launched two years earlier.
The chapel was originally rectangular in plan, and in 1682 the rectangle was elongated by a first extension to the building. Then in 1690 a further larger extension doubled the size of the chapel, forming its present roughly square plan. Kip’s view of 1719 illustrated here, shows the building in its extended state, and is much as it remains today.
Although the exterior of the church is simple by later C17 standards, its glory is the plasterwork of its ceilings, designed by John Wetherell, his only known plastering job, and partly completed by Henry Doogood, one of Sir Christopher Wren’s leading plasterers.
The fact that some of the interior woodwork comes from a demolished Wren City Church – All Hallows, Bread Street – only increases its likeness to Wren’s work. Whether Wren was involved in the design of the church is unclear, though many who were known to him, including Fellows of the Royal Society among whom was his fellow architect, Robert Hooke, subscribed to the building fund.
The 17th century galleried interior remained little changed for nearly two centuries, until the 1880s when the architect to the Church Commissioners, Ewan Christian, was responsible for removing the eastern part of the gallery and forming a sympathetic classical chancel arch and a sanctuary that incorporated finely-carved Credo and Paternoster boards, saved from a Wren church in London – All Hallows, Bread Street – that was being demolished. The chapel became a parish church in 1889, when it acquired its own parish which includes the nearby historic Pantiles.
Photographs – copyright David Wrightson