List of places of worship in Tunbridge Wells (borough)
Download coordinates as: The borough of Tunbridge Wells, one of 13 local government districts in the English county of Kent, has nearly 130 current and former places of worship.
The mostly rural area is dominated by the prosperous spa town of Royal Tunbridge Wells and its suburbs, such as Southborough, Pembury and Langton Green.
Ancient parish churches and small Nonconformist chapels characterise the villages and hamlets elsewhere in the borough, which borders East Sussex in the southwestern part of Kent.
Three Anglican churches are shared by other denominations, and separate chapels and meeting rooms for non-Anglican worshippers are prevalent as well.
[4] The borough of Tunbridge Wells covers 33,133 hectares (81,870 acres) of southwest Kent next to the county of East Sussex.
The fertile, undulating and sparsely populated Weald, from whose northern edge the North Downs rise sharply, dominates the rest of the area.
[8] Christianity reached England via Kent: in 597 Augustine was sent from Rome by Pope Gregory I to convert the population, and several 7th-century ecclesiastical buildings survive in the county.
[23] Protestant Nonconformist denominations found great support in Kent, especially during the 19th century,[24] and many of their chapels survive in the borough of Tunbridge Wells.
[24] The decline of Methodism since its Victorian heyday and the amalgamation of its various strands into one denomination[25] means that only three chapels are still in use in the borough, along with a shared Anglican and Methodist church at Paddock Wood.
Calvinism, "the characteristic religion of rural Kent",[27] made its mark in places such as Matfield, Cranbrook, Lamberhurst and Southborough, each of which has a surviving Strict Baptist chapel.
These are "typically small, neat, plain, porched and with a Hebrew name": Matfield's is called Ebenezer, as is a former chapel at Hawkhurst, and other closed chapels for Calvinistic Baptists include Providence (Cranbrook and Curtisden Green), Rehoboth (Royal Tunbridge Wells) and Jehovah Jireh (in a hamlet near Brenchley).
[49][50] Those in the joint parish of Goudhurst, Hawkhurst and Horsmonden[51] are in Maidstone Deanery, as is the church at Cranbrook and its associated Mass Centre at Benenden.
Cranbrook, Lamberhurst, Matfield and Southborough each have one, and there are two in Royal Tunbridge Wells: the early 19th-century Hanover Chapel and the modern Pantiles Baptist Church.
All are affiliated with the Gospel Standard movement[57] except Southborough and the Pantiles chapel; the latter belongs to GraceNet UK, an association of Reformed Evangelical Christian churches and organisations.
