Anke: Royal Tunbridge Wells

The Mortuary Cross

Along with my great friend David, as part of the Tunbridge Wells Project, we were privileged enough to be allowed to see inside, and photograph, the Mortuary Chapel underneath St. Barnabas Church. Whilst under there we were both drawn to the simple wooden cross hanging on the wall, upon further investigation there seems to be more to it than we first thought.

The cross on the wall of the Mortuary Chapel. Click to go to the Project Gallery.

St. Barnabas was built in one of the poorer parts of town but it still attracted a few of the wealthier families to its services. One of these was the Ranking family, they were a medical family and many of them served in the Indian Army.

Captain James Ranking was serving in India with the East Lancashire Regiment and the 26th Punjab Infantry. His language skills whilst there enabled him to work with the Foreign Office in Bushire on the Persian Gulf. Persia wasn't offically involved in the First World War but had a lot of secret agents from both sides stationed there. One such agent was the German, Wilhelm Wassmuss. Wassmuss was attempting to provoke the British Army by stirring up anti-British feeling and laying the foundations of a revolt by forming an army of Tangistani warriors to fight against them.

Wassmuss's intention was to attack the vulnerable British Residency at Bushire which was only lightly defended by inexperienced Indian troops. The Tangistanis, several hundred strong, planned to attack from the East and South, taking the residency by surprise. However, on the morning of July 12th 1915, a Tangistani scouting party was seen advancing across the desert and a small British patrol was sent out to investigate, led by Major Oliphant and Captain Ranking.

The crucifix watches over the Mortuary Chapel and Captain Ranking's cross. Click to go to the Project Gallery.

The patrol unfortunately ran into a far larger enemy force than they could cope with. In the ensuing battle Captain Ranking was mortally wounded and the major died in an attempt to save him. A few of their Indian colleagues survived to get back home to raise the alarm.

The Tangistani raid on Bushire lasted until September 1915 and ended in defeat, and Captain Ranking was buried in the Tehran War Cemetery in Iran.

What is rather special though is that the temporary wooden cross placed over his original burial plot was not destroyed when the permanent stone was erected. Instead, on the 25th May 1928, there was a citation to bring the cross back to England and place it in the Mortuary Chapel of St. Barnabas in his memory. And there it has remained ever since.

You can go and see it for yourself during Heritage Open Weekend this year from the 8th to the 11th of September, and I highly recommend you do, or you can click to see all 450+ photographs in the St. Barnabas Church gallery on the Project website.

Heritage Open Weekend 2010

The damp end to the Summer did nothing to dampen my spirit as this weekend is Heritage Open Weekend 2010 here in Tunbridge Wells and the opening of many of our previously inaccessible buildings to the public. One of the best weekends of the calendar.

Detail of the ceiling of the Opera House.

Thursday always sees a few attractions open early so I took the opportunity to have a look around the Opera House on Mount Pleasant, something that I have never done before, strange I know.

Sign above the door.

Interior view of Opera House.

Our tour of the famous building took us from the entrance (have you ever noticed the names of the two separate entrances over the top of the doors?) up the closed-off stairs to the original bar above, this room has the balcony in it you can see from the road. Some of the original wooden bar furnishings still adorn the room, although now appear to serve as shelving for tea and biscuits.

View of the school from the playground.

We climbed right to the top of the building, well almost, to the recently restored Dress Circle when you can access the balcony of seats to get a commanding view of the stage below which is now home to throngs of people enjoying a pint as this opera house is now a pub.

From up in the gods the details of the ceiling can really be appreciated all decorated in red, gold and blue. During the War an incendiary bomb went right through the roof at this point and landed on one of the proscenium arch stanchions above the stage, the damage wasn't great but there was rather a large hole to be repaired. I have to be honest and say that the Opera House really would dearly love some care and attention and a few pounds spent on it to really bring it back to its former glory. I heartily recommend a tour around to see the great details lurking and hidden within.

Next time you're going in for a pint, use the right-hand side entrance as this was supposedly the side that the gentry entered the building where they were greeted and their hats and coats taken, the other side patrons were left to find their seats themselves. I'm not too sure if Wetherspoons still run this policy though.

Saturday morning saw the opening of the rest of the Heritage locations. I headed straight over to another place that I'd never visited before, St. Barnabas School. Here some of the pupils were giving the tours around the building but I managed to bag myself the font of all school knowledge, Dave Prodrick. David took me around the Victorian corridors which reminded me of my old school days, not in Victorian times I hasten to add, and also around the highly decorated classrooms.

A rather jolly welcome to school, even on a wet day.

This school, opened by John Stone Wigg in 1896 was originally one of the schools for the poor, you can tell this apparently by the electricity substation that was built right next to the playground many years ago, the building being a place that no-one cared about. Thankfully the only part of history that today's school retains is the wonderful three storey brick and sandstone architecture as it is now an excellent place of learning.

Thanks very much for the informative tour, David.

A view of the Harrison and Harrison organ.

A view of the church interior.

The most interesting visit of my weekend so far though was probably the most modern building of the whole schedule, St. Augustine's Church. This church dates back to 1837, although not in this current form, the original Roman Catholic chapel was at the junction of Grosvenor Road and Hanover Road, right where Tesco stands today. The congregation grew in numbers over the years and the Jesuits decided to relocate and sold the land to Tesco who demolished the beautiful original chapel in the 1960s. Criminal.

The only surviving piece of the old chapel.

The plans for the new building were approved in 1974 and the work took 12 months and cost £177,500 to complete. It's a strange church architecturally as the Presbytery, where the priest lives, is actually underneath the church itself. This is because the building is on one of our famous steep hills so to keep the main hall on one level the hill was infilled with living quarters.

For such an unassuming building on the outside, the inside is quite interesting to see, it feels very modern and somewhat European in its design with very thin windows surrounding the entire hall and a very large timbered ceiling above on which sits a rather whimsical scaffold-style cross, pop outside around the back to have a look.

If you do pop in, take notice of the big church organ in the centre of the main hall with its rather amusing button "Swell to Great." I didn't push it.

There is one piece of the old church that still remains to this day, very sad news but at least one piece survives, and that is the simple wooden statue of Jesus who watches over people's prayers over by the confessional chambers. The statue, just like its church surroundings, also has the appearance of the modern era, it's a delightfully simple yet elegantly carved piece of wood that looks like it was hewn yesterday. He also had two small lights on the wall next to him, a red one saying Wait and a green one saying Come In. He was telling me to wait. So I did. And whilst I did my attention was drawn to a notice on the wall telling parishioners to remember the wonderful Stephen Upsall, our recently passed friend from Trinity Theatre. I took a few minutes to pay my respects, light a candle and bid farewell.

A quick game of hopscotch on the way home from school.