The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups across Tunbridge Wells.
Pay as you feel café celebrates busy start as community hub, timeslocalnews.co.uk (Feb 28, 2024)
Community resources[edit | edit source]
Cranbrook Community Centre on facebook.com
Open spaces[edit | edit source]
Friends of Calverley Grounds on facebook, community group looking after the park in the centre of Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, 30 miles (50 kilometres) southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. The town was a spa in the Restoration and a fashionable resort in the mid-1700s under Beau Nash when the Pantiles, and its chalybeate spring, attracted visitors who wished to take the waters. Though its popularity as a spa town waned with the advent of sea bathing, the town still derives much of its income from tourism.
The town has a population of around 56,500, and is the administrative centre of Tunbridge Wells Borough and in the parliamentary constituency of Tunbridge Wells.
Evidence suggests that Iron Age people farmed the fields and mined the iron-rich rocks in the Tunbridge Wells area, and excavations in 1940 and 1957–61 by James Money at High Rocks uncovered the remains of a defensive hill-fort. It is thought that the site was occupied into the era of Roman Britain, and the area continued to be part of the Wealden iron industry until its demise in the late eighteenth century. An iron forge remains in the grounds of Bayham Abbey, in use until 1575 and documented until 1714.
The area which is now Tunbridge Wells was part of the parish of Speldhurst for hundreds of years.
The origin of the town today came in the seventeenth century. In 1606 Dudley North, 3rd Baron North, a courtier to James I who was staying at a hunting lodge in Eridge in the hope that the country air might improve his ailing constitution, discovered a chalybeate spring. He drank from the spring and, when his health improved, he became convinced that it had healing properties. He persuaded his rich friends in London to try it, and by the time Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I, visited in 1630 it had established itself as a spa retreat. By 1636 it had become so popular that two houses were built next to the spring to cater for the visitors, one for the ladies and one for the gentlemen, and in 1664 Lord Muskerry, Lord of the Manor, enclosed it with a triangular stone wall, and built a hall "to shelter the dippers in wet weather."
Until 1676 little permanent building took place—visitors were obliged either to camp on the downs or to find lodgings at Southborough—, but at this time houses and shops were erected on the walks, and every "convenient situation near the springs" was built upon. Also in 1676 a subscription for a "chapel of ease" was opened, and in 1684 the Church of King Charles the Martyr was duly built and the town began to develop around it. In 1787 Edward Hasted described the new town as consisting of four small districts, "named after the hills on which they stand, Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant and Mount Sion; the other is called the Wells..."
Trees, woodland and forest[edit | edit source]
Bedgebury Forest is a 10.5 square kilometres (2,600 acres) forest surrounding Bedgebury National Pinetum, near Flimwell in Kent. In contrast to the National Pinetum, which contains exclusively coniferous trees, the forest contains both deciduous and coniferous species. It forms part of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is one of the so-called "Seven Wonders Of The Weald". Bedgebury Forest has facilities for cycling, mountain biking, riding, orienteering and adventure play.
Ethical consumerism[edit | edit source]
Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle[edit | edit source]
Food[edit | edit source]
About Tunbridge Wells[edit | edit source]
Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, 30 miles (50 kilometres) southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. The town was a spa in the Restoration and a fashionable resort in the mid-1700s under Beau Nash when the Pantiles, and its chalybeate spring, attracted visitors who wished to take the waters. Though its popularity as a spa town waned with the advent of sea bathing, the town still derives much of its income from tourism.
The town has a population of around 56,500, and is the administrative centre of Tunbridge Wells Borough and in the parliamentary constituency of Tunbridge Wells.
Near you[edit | edit source]
Ashford - Maidstone - Sevenoaks - Tonbridge
See also[edit | edit source]
- Towards a more democratic and climate friendly way of meeting housing need across England
- London and South East England
- Saving water in South East England
