Holy Trinity Church is a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

parish church based in

Crockham Hill Crockham Hill is a village in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. It is about south of Westerham, and Chartwell is nearby. The village has a population of around 270 people. It contains a 19th-century pub, the Royal Oak, and Holy Trinity ch ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. It was constructed in 1842 and is a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

building.

History

The idea for the construction of Holy Trinity Church came from Charles Warde from

Westerham Westerham is a town and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located 3.4 miles east of Oxted and 6 miles west of Sevenoaks, adjacent to the Kent border with both Greater London and Surrey. It is recorded as early as t ...

, who noticed there was no Church of England place of worship in Crockham Hill. Warde funded the construction of the church in 1842 with assistance from an endowment granted by his sister E Mildmay. Warde became patron of the church, establishing a tradition that a member of the Warde family would be a patron of the church – a tradition that currently continues. The church was granted Grade II listed building status in 1954 for its Victorian-medieval style architecture and original fittings. In 2019, the church was subject to a burglary and the original Victorian

lectern A lectern is a reading desk with a slanted top, on which documents or books are placed as support for reading aloud, as in a scripture reading, lecture, or sermon. A lectern is usually attached to a stand or affixed to some other form of support. ...

was stolen. The church's association with the social reformer

Octavia Hill Octavia Hill (3 December 1838 – 13 August 1912) was an English Reform movement, social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a fa ...

also provided a reason for its Grade II listed status. Hill lived in Crockham Hill and worshipped at the church. She was responsible for the purchase of the land surrounding the church for the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

. Hill is buried in Holy Trinity's churchyard under a yew tree; there is a memorial sarcophagus inside the church.

Ecclesiastic use

After initial construction, the church was a part of the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

of Westerham St Mary's until 1845 when it became its own parish. In 1981, the Church of England decided that Holy Trinity Church's parish should be merged with that of nearby St Peter and St Paul's,

Edenbridge Edenbridge may mean: * Edenbridge (band), a symphonic metal band from Austria *Edenbridge, Kent, a town in England *Edenbridge, Saskatchewan, a former Jewish settlement in Canada *Humber Valley Village Humber Valley Village is a neighbourhood lo ...

, with an associate vicar taking services at Crockham Hill and the Warde patronage suspended. The decision was not popular locally due to the historical associations with Westerham being ignored, and the

Bishop of Rochester The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury. The town of Rochester has the bishop's seat, at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was foun ...

appointed the future Archdeacon of Tonbridge Richard Mason as the

priest-in-charge A priest in charge or priest-in-charge (previously also curate-in-charge) in the Church of England is a priest in charge of a parish who is not its incumbent. Such priests are not legally responsible for the churches and glebe, but simply hold a ...

to smooth over relations. This situation continued until 2014, when Holy Trinity Church became its own independent parish again with the induction of a new vicar translated from

St Mark's Church, Royal Tunbridge Wells St. Mark's Church is the Church of England parish church for the Broadwater Down area of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, in the Diocese of Rochester. Built in the 19th-century Gothic Revival style by Robert Lewis Roumieu, it is a Grade II* ...

References

{{Reflist Church of England church buildings in Kent Churches completed in 1842 Gothic Revival church buildings in England Grade II listed churches in Kent Westerham

History

Ecclesiastic use

See also

References