Sundridge is a village within the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

of Sundridge with Ide Hill, in the

Sevenoaks Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506 situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter main line railway into London. Sevenoaks is from Charing Cross, the tradition ...

District of

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. The village is located on the

A25 road The A25 road is an east–west main road in the South-East of England. Its carries traffic east from Guildford, Surrey, eastward through Surrey and into mid-west Kent, to the town of Sevenoaks, and then on to Wrotham Heath where it connects wi ...

to the east of

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 a ...

. It lies within the

Kent Downs The Kent Downs is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in Kent, England. They are the eastern half of the North Downs and stretch from the London/Surrey borders to the White Cliffs of Dover, including a small section of the London B ...

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of th ...

and within

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

’s

Metropolitan Green Belt The Metropolitan Green Belt is a statutory green belt around London, England. It comprises parts of Greater London, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey, parts of two of the three districts of Bedfordshire and a ...

. It is approximately 21 miles south of

. Its church is Anglican and dedicated to

St Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...

History

Sundridge appears in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086 as Sondresse, held by the

Archdiocese of Canterbury The Province of Canterbury, or less formally the Southern Province, is one of two ecclesiastical provinces which constitute the Church of England. The other is the Province of York (which consists of 12 dioceses). Overview The Province consist ...

. King Henry III granted the manor to Sir Ralph de Fremingham in the 1340s: it remained in the Fremingham and Isley family until the 17th century. The manor was then sold to the Hyde family. The Parish Church of St Mary dates from the 12th century and is Grade I listed. It was restored in the 19th century and further repaired after a fire in 1882. Radnor House, previously known as Combe Bank, is a Grade I listed

Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

mansion dating from 1728; it was designed by Roger Morris and built for Colonel John Campbell, later Duke of Argyll. It was later the home of the banker Sir William Manning MP, whose son

Cardinal Henry Manning Henry Edward Manning (15 July 1808 – 14 January 1892) was an English prelate of the Catholic church, and the second Archbishop of Westminster from 1865 until his death in 1892. He was ordained in the Church of England as a young man, but conv ...

grew up there. Radnor House remained a private home until the 1920s, and then became a convent, an independent school and a wedding venue.

Notable residents

Beilby Porteus Beilby Porteus (or Porteous; 8 May 1731 – 13 May 1809), successively Bishop of Chester and of London, was a Church of England reformer and a leading abolitionist in England. He was the first Anglican in a position of authority to seriously ch ...

(1731–1809),

Bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or offic ...

and leading abolitionist, who spent several weeks in the autumn of each year at his small country home at Bishop's Court, Sundridge. He died at

Fulham Palace Fulham Palace, in Fulham, London, previously in the former English county of Middlesex, is a Grade I listed building with medieval origins and was formerly the principal residence of the Bishop of London. The site was the country home of the ...

and was buried at St. Mary's Church, where his tomb lies in the churchyard. *

Anne Seymour Damer Anne Seymour Damer, ''née'' Conway, (26 October 1748 – 28 May 1828) was an English sculptor. Once described as a 'female genius' by Horace Walpole, she was trained in sculpture by Giuseppe Ceracchi and John Bacon. Influenced by the Enlighte ...

(1748–1828), the daughter of Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway and Caroline Conway, who would become a noted sculptor and the owner of

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twi ...

's famous estate, Strawberry Hill. *

Christopher Wordsworth Christopher Wordsworth (30 October 180720 March 1885) was an English intellectual and a bishop of the Anglican Church. Life Wordsworth was born in London, the youngest son of Christopher Wordsworth, Master of Trinity, who was the youngest b ...

(1807–1885), the youngest brother of the famous poet

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's '' ...

. Christopher would later become

Bishop of Lincoln The Bishop of Lincoln is the ordinary (diocesan bishop) of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury. The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and N ...

. *

William Spottiswoode William H. Spottiswoode HFRSE LLD (11 January 1825 – 27 June 1883) was an English mathematician, physicist and partner in the printing and publishing firm Eyre & Spottiswoode. He was president of the Royal Society from 1878 to 1883. Biogr ...

(1825-1883), President of the Royal Society, lived at Combe Bank *

Ludwig Mond Ludwig Mond FRS (7 March 1839 – 11 December 1909) was a German-born, British chemist and industrialist. He discovered an important, previously unknown, class of compounds called metal carbonyls. Education and career Ludwig Mond was born ...

(1839-1909), industrial scientist, lived at Combe Bank * Rt Hon Michael Fallon, MP (born 1952), Secretary of State for Defence, 2014–2017.

Sundridge Aerodrome

Around 1910 an aerodrome with a three-bay timber-framed corrugated-iron clad

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

was opened north of Chevening Road, , by Russian

Prince Serge de Bolotoff A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

, a sales representative for

Albatros Flugzeugwerke Albatros Flugzeugwerke GmbH was a German aircraft manufacturer best known for supplying the German airforces during World War I. The company was based in Johannisthal, Berlin, where it was founded by Walter Huth and Otto Wiener on December 20, 1 ...

, Berlin, who had gained experience of aircraft design at the Voisin works, Billancourt, France and at

Brooklands Brooklands was a Auto racing, motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built 'banked' motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's fir ...

in Surrey. He set up a small aircraft factory at Sundridge Aerodrome shortly before World War One in the three-bay hangar. A two-seat

De Bolotoff SDEB 14 __NOTOC__ The De Bolotoff SDEB 14 was a British two-seat utility biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane ...

biplane was built there and registered to the de Bolotoff Company in August 1919. Around 1927 the factory building became a

bus depot A bus garage, also known as a bus depot, bus base or bus barn, is a facility where buses are stored and maintained. In many conurbations, bus garages are on the site of former car barns or tram sheds, where trams (streetcars) were stored, and ...

, but during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

it reverted to military use with the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

, providing storage and salvage facilities for crash-damaged aircraft. The aerodrome closed in 1945 but the hangar survives today in commercial use; it is believed to be the oldest aircraft hangar in the country and was designated as a Grade II

listed building 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 I ...

in 1988.

Nearest settlements

Notes

External links