The present Church of Charlton is of a date a little more recent than the Mansion.—It is built, however, on the site, and partly with the materials, of an ancient structure. It is dedicated to St. Luke, and seems to have been surrendered to the crown with the Manor of Charlton, and the rest of the possessions of St. Saviour’s, at its dissolution, June 1st, anno 29 King Henry the Eighth, 1537, and to have remained part of the Royal demesnes till James the First granted it with the Manor to Sir Adam Newton, who dying before he was enabled to repair or rebuild it, “left,” according to Philipott, “the care with his cost, to enlarge and beautify God’s house,” to his executors, who “most amply discharged that trust, and in a manner new builded a great part thereof, and erected the steeple new from the ground, and furnished it with a good ring of bells, decorating the same Church without and within so worthily that it surpasseth most in the shire.” The Patron of the Church is Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson; the Rector is the Rev. Arthur Drummond, who married a sister of the present baronet. The structure is of red brick, consisting of a Chancel, a Nave, and North Aisle. At the West end is a square brick Tower embattled. In the Windows of the Chancel are several Coats of Arms in stained glass—principally those of Lee Warner, Bishop of Rochester; Newton (uncle of Sir Adam, one of his executors) Blunt, of Wricklemarsh; Peto, quartering Langley and Loges; Puckering; Sir William Langhorne, impaling Manners,—Sir William’s first wife being a daughter of the Earl of Rutland; Puckering impaling Chowne, Wilson quartering Smythe, Haddon, and Weller, &c.
The Church contains Monuments to Sir Adam Newton, the founder of the Mansion, and his Lady, with a Latin inscription written by himself; of Sir William Langhorne and his wife Grace, daughter of John, Earl of Rutland, and relict of Viscount Armagh; Brigadier Michael Richards, Surveyor-general of Ordnance to George the First; James Craggs, Esq., Postmaster-general, 1721;[46] John Turnpenny, Esq., “who by industry acquired, by economy improved, and with equity dispensed, a considerable fortune among his surviving friends”; Sir John Lambert Middleton, Bart.; Edward Falkingham, Esq., Comptroller of the Navy, 1757; and of the father and grandfather and other members of the family of the present baronet. A bust by Chantrey, with an inscription, is also placed here over the remains of the amiable and excellent Right Hon. Spencer Perceval, who fell by the hand of an assassin, when Prime Minister of the country, in 1812. He married Jane, second daughter of Sir T. Spencer Wilson. The lamented Edward Drummond, also the victim of assassination, having been mistaken by the murderer for Sir R. Peel, to whom he was private secretary, is buried in a vault in the churchyard. He was brother of the present rector.
Few mansions of its date—although that date is no more remote than the beginning of the seventeenth century—have retained, with less injury, the peculiar characteristics of the age of James the First. The present estimable possessor is fortunately anxious to preserve it in its purity; the necessary repairs have been conducted with judgment and taste; and, as an example of the architecture of the period, it may be regarded with exceeding pleasure—a pleasure enhanced by its vicinity to the Metropolis.
J. D. Harding, Delᵗ. on Stone by W. Walton. M. & N. Hanhart, Lithogʳˢ.
COBHAM HALL, KENT.