My last day of commuting into mid-Kent; this is St Peter's Church, Fordcombe, just a half-mile or so from where I have been working. From the Church's website I gleaned the following fascinating history notes: The church was completed in 1849 and the major benefactor was Henry, 1st Viscount Hardinge, recently retired as Governor-General of India. A committed Christian, his letters home from Calcutta and, in the hot season Simla, show his great interest and involvement in planning the new place of worship. Henry was born in 1785 in Wrotham, son of its Vicar. He had a most distinguished military and diplomatic career, joining the Army aged 14, serving later under the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula campaign and then in Flanders before Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo (missing the actual battle, having had his left hand shattered and amputated at Ligny two days earlier). He had been Secretary for Ireland and, in 1844, when he was Secretary at War and aged 59, he most reluctantly agreed to be appointed Governor-General of India, wishing instead, after a lifetime of public service, to enjoy a peaceful retirement at his country seat, South Park, situated half way between Fordcombe and Penshurst.
It was after his success in the Sikh War in the Punjab in 1845, where his amputated left hand boosted his image and warlike reputation with his British and Indian soldiers, that he was rewarded with a Viscountcy, becoming the 1st Viscount Hardinge of Lahore. In 1847 the British Government begged him to continue his successful work in India but, having been separated from his wife Emily for nearly four years (due to her delicate health, she had been unable to accompany him to India), he refused to remain and came home to a hero’s welcome, reaching South Park on 31st March 1848. The following month he came to Fordcombe to lay the foundation stone for St. Peter’s.
fav
Ian
I'm sure you will make the best of what there is to see!
Ian