When it was built, the church was the first substantial building constructed in Tunbridge Wells.[5] The church had no resident vicar until 1709, and relied on visiting clergymen to conduct services.[1] As Tunbridge Wells expanded, so did the church. After new parishes were created for the expanding town, the position of the chapel became an anomaly and it eventually became itself a parish church in 1889, but with an unusually small parochial area.[3] It had been visited by the young Queen Victoria with her mother the Duchess of Kent, and a plaque was installed to commemorate this on the pew they sat in.[6]
Design
The interior of the church
The church was built using red bricks. The ceilings inside are made of plaster with five domes and were designed in 1678 by John Wetherell. In 1688, Henry Doogood, the chief plasterer of Sir Christopher Wren, expanded it.[6] In 1846, a vestry and a schoolroom was added. In 1882, Ewan Christian re-orientated the church while adding a chancel and reinforcing the church with steel.[3] The panels either side of the altar in the new chancel came from a demolished church designed by Christopher Wren, St. Antholin, Budge Row, in the City of London.[7]
The boundary stone
Outside the church is a stone set into the pavement which marked the parish boundaries of Speldhurst, Tonbridge and Frant, and also of Kent and Sussex before the county boundaries were redrawn.[8]
In 1969, Lawrence Lee produced The Ruth Window, a small two-light window with the figure of Ruth in one light and her work - gleaning in the fields - in the other.[9]
