Anke: Royal Tunbridge Wells

Inside King Charles the Martyr's Roof

You could be forgiven for thinking that these photographs are of some Hollywood fantasy film set. You'd be wrong. This is what lies above the magnificent ceiling of King Charles the Martyr Church.

Inside the roof of King Charles the Martyr.

David and I were invited along for our Tunbridge Wells Project by the Reverend, Robert Avery. He was really excited to share behind the scenes of the church and especially the wonderful world that lies above everybody's heads. Upon climbing the small staircase and into the roof, we were gobsmacked. It's really hard to describe the feeling of walking into the roofspace, all we could think of was it was like a Harry Potter set.

Countless ancient wooden beams aimed at your head at every turn, there were walkways, ladders, nooks, crannies, there was astonishment everywhere. You could see where all the additions had been made to the church over the years. You could even see the delicate handiwork of the craftsmen that created the plaster domes hundreds of years ago.

The ventilation ducting of King Charles the Martyr.

One thing that struck me was the wooden ducting that you can see in the photograph above. It turns out that this is an ancient form of air conditioning. If you go into the chapel and look up you will notice that in some of the domes are small roses, and inside these roses are holes. These holes lead into these wooden tubes and then out to the fresh air. There are small wooden slats to regulate the flow, although you'd have to climb into the roof to do it of course.

One of the ceiling roses, complete with vent hole.

Thank you very kindly to the Reverend and the kind folks who helped show us around this great church. To see the rest of the photographs of the mind-boggling roofspace, the vestry and much much more, then visit the Tunbridge Wells Project. Go now!

The Project Makes Headlines

You'll be pleasantly surprised when you open your edition of the Kent & Sussex Courier this morning to find David and myself staring back at you. They've printed a rather nice double-page spread of our Tunbridge Wells Project.

Copyright of Kent & Sussex Courier. Click to purchase online edition.

Thank you to Jane Bakowski for the friendly chat and the nice article. You can purchase your copy of the Kent & Sussex Courier online to make it even easier.

Most Haunted

It's been too many weeks since David and I met up to take some pictures for our Project and this one was to be quite a scary one.

The "ghosts" of the pump room. David's photograph.

Our shoot for the day would be in The Retreat public house on Church Road. This building wasn't always a public house though.

The building first appears on an 1808 map but is just listed as a Lodging House of Mr Morley. Records show that it was a lodging house between 1740-1780. In 1821 it was listed as a hotel and by the 1950s it had become a pub. But it's the period of the mid 19th Century that had us both so intrigued as to want to pay this place a visit.

Back in the mid 1800s the building was used as our town's magistrates court and hearings were held here every fortnight. The building contained cells within the basement to hold the prisoners and rooms to hold the bodies of those who were hanged on the Common for their crimes before their corpses were taken to the funeral house (Sadly, this claim cannot be established with any written text, yet).

David and I opened the creaky door to the cellar and climbed down below to check out what was left of the cells.

The stairs down into the darkness of the cellar.

The photo at the top of this post shows what is now the pump room of the pub. The alcoves in this room are where prisoners would be shackled to the walls with irons. Today we may be larking about being convicts but it really couldn't have been much fun being chained up down here. We had really had quite enough after about half an hour. Apparently psychics have been in here and "seen" people in these alcoves. It's rather eerie to imagine that we were probably being watched whilst shooting these images. David was rather spooked upon hearing the scraping of boxes across the floor whilst in here but nobody else was there. The photo below is a crop of one of David's photographs in this room, can you explain the strange apparition?

Well, can you explain it?

The room in the photo below is apparently one of the scariest rooms down here, and one that has a lot of people feeling intense discomfort. This room has the appearance of a cell with the door now missing and this is most likely the area where they stored the dead bodies. We were both alarmed by three loud knocks when standing in this room. There was nobody there with us. Or was there?

The body/bottle storage room.

The photo below shows an archway that is said to be an entrance to tunnels. There is another archway directly opposite this in another room and we know that goes next door as we have been there on the other side. Alas we have no idea where the entrance in the photo below goes, this one needs some more research.

One of the archway entrances to the tunnels?

The room opposite this one has some original woodwork and brick shelving which could well be where the gaoler stored the irons, keys or torture devices. Although it was probably for his paperwork and lunch that his wife had made him. Click on through to the project to see the rest of the images showing this room.

It's said that the staff never look back when locking up down in the cellar as there is a horrible feeling of someone following you. We, of course, looked back but unfortunately nobody was there.

This building seems to have the most ghostly tales I have heard of in Tunbridge Wells. The staff were regaling us with all the things they had seen, such as the shadows that appear to walk through the bar to the back door but belong to no body, objects flying around and the many tales of the haunted stairs. These really get your goosebumps bumping. There isn't room to list them all here so if you want to hear them then you'll have to stay tuned to the blog and watch out for the Tunbridge Wells Ghost Tour coming very soon.

The haunted stairs.

David and I would like to thank The Retreat for letting us in to photograph for the Project. We had a really nice lunch and a beer too so we recommend you should pop in and check them out, you never know who will be sitting next to you at the bar.

Friends Passage*

Little is known about the mysterious passage that lies next to the Ragged Trousers pub on The Pantiles.

Many a tourist, and local alike, have pushed their cheeks up to the bars on the locked gate to try and see what lies beyond. The Pythonesque hand pointing down to "The Crypt" teases you with an enormous temptation to try the lock.

Shown below on a map of 1808, the Hand & Sceptre Hotel is the building to which The Crypt was a part, it was a bar in the cellars and was only accessible via this gate on The Pantiles. The first recorded landlord was in 1824, it changed hands many times over the years until it closed in 1923. For a building that stood on The Pantiles for such a long time, 1800-1923 in fact, there really isn't much information or pictures available, just the occasional Census entry and map reference.

Of course, the most commonly asked question here is why is it named Friends Passage? Well, we think it is named this because in 1739 the house at the back was occupied by Robert Friend, and it was his house that became the back entrance to the Hand & Sceptre Hotel. The main entrance was on London Road.

There are other signs still around today that the Hand & Sceptre once stood here. Remarkably the stables still exist; you probably see them every day and hardly take a second glance, it's the Master Transcription building on the edge of the Common.

To be honest, that's about all we know, unless you know any more and can help me fill in the blanks?

So, there you go, now you know a tiny little more about that creepy passageway next time you peer inside. But, whatever you do, don't peer inside after dark, reports of ghosts walking the courtyard and coming up to the locked gate to rattle it have been heard.

To see more images, drop on by our Tunbridge Wells Project. Thanks go to Catherine Pitt, Tunbridge Wells Tour Guide extraordinaire, for her help in writing and researching this article. *Don't shout at me for the lack of an apostrophe, it doesn't have one on the sign.

Noah's Ark Finally Surfaces

Noah's Ark had lain hidden for nearly twenty years. But when it finally surfaced recently, we were there to witness it.

Noah's Ark.

No, we haven't been on holiday to Mount Ararat, this was on Mount Ephraim and David and I were in the now abandoned Kent & Sussex Hospital.

Some of you may remember the Children's Ward of the hospital which had lots of vibrant and cheerful animal tiles on the walls above the beds.

One of the animal tiles.

These tiles were originally installed to cheer up the children who were staying on the ward for long periods. As well as providing some colour and fun they were also believed to be a much more hygienic surface than regular wall coverings as they were easy to wipe clean. Although I would presume this was for entire walls of tiles and not small panels with edges that attract dirt but there you go.

One of the animal tiles.

The tiles, also called Carter's Tiles, cost around £9 for each scene and were paid for with funds raised by the Courier Newspaper's PeaNut Club. It has been said recently that it would take 10,000 times as much as they originally cost to remove them, but be rest assured that a caveat will be in place on the demolition of the building to save them.

One of the animal tiles.

They were made by WB Simpson of the Poole Pottery in Dorset who created tiles for pretty much any sector of industry you care to imagine. If you visit the website of the Virtual Museum of Poole Pottery you will see that the Tunbridge Wells tiles were also made for other hospitals around the UK. The pottery was so proud of these that they featured in their publicity campaign of 1935.

All of the tiles were actually painted over and then boarded over in 1965 but then rediscovered and restored during some building works in 1984. Unfortunately the Ark wasn't so lucky and had been covered over again so that a sink could be installed in front of it. Now the hospital was empty it was time to reveal the Ark again.

The reveal of the Ark begins.

We sat waiting patiently whilst one of the workmen sawed away, walloped with hammers, chipped with chisels and basically lost pints of sweat in brute force trying to remove the wooden covering.

Sawing away at the wooden covering.

Time for a bit of brute force.

But then finally, after ten minutes of waiting, the cover was removed and there it was. The colours were beautiful, being covered up had protected the colourful tiles from the sun and from the modern harsh cleaning materials. The colours were so vivid in the low sun streaming through the window.

The Ark is revealed.

Also, it being revealed meant that the rest of the animal tiles in the ward now made sense. You may notice if you look at one of the general photos of the ward that all the animals are in pairs and are walking towards the brightly-coloured Ark ready to board. Just like the Bible story.

The Ark in all it's glory, being seen for the first time in 20 years.

We were the first people to see the Ark for nearly 20 years and it was quite an experience and one I won't forget in quite some time.

Keep stopping by our Tunbridge Wells Project as we add more and more galleries to the abandoned Kent & Sussex Hospital album.