THE CHURCH OF KING CHARLES THE MARTYR

THE CHURCH OF KING CHARLES THE MARTYR, LONDON ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1084478
Date first listed:: 20-May-1952
List Entry Name:: THE CHURCH OF KING CHARLES THE MARTYR
Statutory Address:: THE CHURCH OF KING CHARLES THE MARTYR, LONDON ROAD

User submitted image — Uploaded by Brian Mawdsley This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2006-12-12
Reference:: IOE01/16251/03
Rights:: © Dr Ray Hawkins. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1084478
Date first listed:: 20-May-1952
List Entry Name:: THE CHURCH OF KING CHARLES THE MARTYR
Statutory Address 1:: THE CHURCH OF KING CHARLES THE MARTYR, LONDON ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: THE CHURCH OF KING CHARLES THE MARTYR, LONDON ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Kent
District:: Tunbridge Wells (District Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 58197 38810

Details

872/1/43 LONDON ROAD 20-MAY-1952 THE CHURCH OF KING CHARLES THE MARTYR

GV I

Church. On a corner site at one end of the Pantiles, close to the well at Tunbridge Wells with which the church has been intimately connected. 1676-1684, builder Mr Green. The original design was lengthened to (present ritual) N in 1679-80. Both phases have ornamental plaster ceilings. The existing ritual N was then the ritual E end. In 1688-1696 the church was doubled in size with a matching parallel block to the W, producing a plan that was almost square. The builder for this work was Mr Waghorne. 1846 vestry, part of a schoolroom and vestry block. In 1882 Ewan Christian added a short chancel on the E side and the church was re-oriented. Christian also reinforced the church with steel.

MATERIALS: It is built of red brick with some blue headers, tiled roofs.

PLAN: The present plan is square-shaped with N and S galleries; SE vestry, NE organ chamber.

EXTERIOR: The ritual W end has buttresses with set offs and is roofed N/S with sprocketted eaves above a deep cornice. Pair of matching brick porches with corner pilasters, stone cornices and rubbed brick flat arches to the outer doorways. 7 tall windows with Y glazing bars. S side has 2 gables and three similar windows. Off the S end of the rear gabled roof is a clock turret with cupola. This has a square-on-plan weather-boarded base, the cupola with a domed lead roof with finial and weathervane. The clock is 1760 (mechanism still in situ, but clock worked by 1998 mechanism), minute hand added 1799. S doorway into vestry has a flat porch hood on curly timber brackets. The chancel is gabled to the E with a large round headed window, flanked by the vestry and organ chamber blocks, roofed at right angles to the chancel. The organ chamber block has a canted NE corner and a doorway into the vestry with a flat porch hood on curly timber brackets.

INTERIOR: The interior has a segmental-headed 1882 chancel arch supported on classical columns flanked by narrow bays with matching pilasters and an entablature. The columns match those of the 1688-96 phase that mark the former W wall of the original church. Spectacular plasterwork of the highest quality by craftsmen who had worked for Sir Christopher Wren. The E half of the nave is by John Wetherell a design of shallow domes and roundels, enriched with husk ornament, festoons of fruit, cherubs' heads and palms. Wetherell was paid in 1681. The N bay of the design is a deeper octagon, formerly above the first phase sanctuary. Wetherell designed this but it was executed by Henry Doogood. Doogood also executed the plasterwork now in the W half of the nave when the church was enlarged, employing a matching design in 1690-96 but interpreting it 'with more bravura' (Pevsner).

Grey and white paving. N and S galleries on turned timber posts, their fronts with fielded panels, date from the 2nd phase but amended c.1900 with tiered seating. C17 chapel benches, a real rarity, survive both in the galleries and parts of the nave. The seats and arm rests are supported on turned standards. Some have late Victorian glove rests and Jonas Hanway umbrella stands attached. Benches in the two centre blocks of the nave were installed in 1912, the design making some reference to their C17 predecessors. Chancel woodwork incorporates pedimented panels with the Lord's Prayer and Creed in richly carved limewood frames by William Cheere, originating from the demolished church of All Hallows, Bread Street, in the City of London. 1906 white marble font with an octagonal bowl decorated with festoons of fruit and winged cherubs' heads, on marble columns with carved capitals. 1901 E window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne. 1969 plain glazing, sympathetic to the building in the nave.

HISTORY: The church was originally built as a chapel to serve the people gathering at Tunbridge Wells to drink the water, and as such was one of the first permanent buildings constructed on the site. Thomas Neale, who began the commercial development of the town was also involved in the construction of the church. As the town grew up around it the church was extended to cope with the growing numbers of town dwellers and spa visitors. It became a parish church in 1889.

The development of the fabric of the church has been thoroughly researched and is very well-documented, as is the major role it and its patrons played in the development of Tunbridge Wells as a fashionable spa. Contemporary lists of contributors and disbursements are framed in the church.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: The Church of King Charles the Martyr is of outstanding historic importance to the history of Tunbridge Wells, and architecturally remarkable for its two phases of late C17 plasterwork of the highest quality, survival of C17 galleries and some original seating. The 1882 addition and alterations by Ewan Christian were sympathetic to the C17 original.

SOURCES: Pevsner, The Buildings of England: W Kent and the Weald, 1980 edn., 576-577. Fuller, John, A New History of the Church of King Charles the Martyr, Tunbridge Wells, 2000. website of the Parish Church of King Charles the Matryr - http://www.kcmtw.org/history.html 06 January 2006.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 168037
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Fuller, J, A New History of the Church of King Charles the Martyr, Tunbridge Wells, (2000)
Newman, J, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald, (1980), 576-577
Pevsner, N, Newman, J, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald, (1980)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.