Sundridge, Kent

St Mary's church

Sundridge is a village within the civil parish of Sundridge with Ide Hill, in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. The village is located on the A25 road to the east of Westerham. Its church is Anglican and dedicated to St Mary.^[1]

Notable residents

• Anne Seymour Damer (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's famous estate, Strawberry Hill.^[2]
• Rt Hon Michael Fallon, MP (born 1952), Secretary of State for Defence since 2014
• Christopher Wordsworth (1807–1885), the youngest brother of the famous poet William Wordsworth. Christopher would later become Bishop of Lincoln.^[3]
• Beilby Porteus (1731–1809), Bishop of London and leading abolitionist, who spent several weeks in the autumn of each year at his small country home at Bishop's Court, Sundridge.^[4] He died at Fulham Palace and was buried at St. Mary's Church, where his tomb lies in the churchyard.

Sundridge Aerodrome

Around 1910 an aerodrome with a three-bay timber-framed corrugated-iron clad hangar was opened north of Chevening Road, 51°16′55″N 0°07′40″E / 51.2820°N 0.1277°E, by Russian Prince Serge de Bolotoff, a sales representative for Albatros Flugzeugwerke, Berlin, who had gained experience of aircraft design at the Voisin works, Billancourt, France and at Brooklands 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 biplane was built there and registered to the de Bolotoff and Company in August 1919. Around 1927 the factory building became a bus depot, but during World War II they reverted to military use by the Royal Air Force, 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 1988.^[5][6]

Nearest Settlements

Notes

1. Collins, Mark. "Patron Saints List for the Roughwood Churches Album". Roughwood web site. Mark Collins. Retrieved March 7, 2013.
2. Margaret King, Ill Fares the Land; A Social History of the Village of Sundridge from 1719-1826 (Sundridge: Friends of St. Mary's Church, 2008), 71.
3. Margaret King, Ill Fares the Land; A Social History of the Village of Sundridge from 1719-1826 (Sundridge: Friends of St. Mary's Church, 2008), 71.
4. Margaret King, Ill Fares the Land; A Social History of the Village of Sundridge from 1719-1826 (Sundridge: Friends of St. Mary's Church, 2008), 57.
5. Woodhead, Lindy (2008). Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge. Profile Books. pp. 147–8. ISBN 978-1-86197-169-2. De Bolotoff married Rosalie Selfridge, daughter of London store owner Harry Selfridge, in 1918.
6. "3 Aircraft Hangars to Former Sundridge Aerodrome at Coombe Bank Farm". The National Heritage List for England. English Heritage. 27 April 1988. Retrieved 10 June 2012.

External links

• Sundridge Web Site
• Notes on Sundridge
• Sundridge Parish Council

Coordinates: 51°16′N 0°08′E / 51.267°N 0.133°E