Sundridge, Kent

Sundridge appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Sondresse, held by the Archdiocese of Canterbury. 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.{{cite web |last1=Hasted |first1=Edward |title=Parishes: Sundridge Pages 126-145 The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3. |website=British History Online |publisher=W Bristow, 1797|url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp126-145 }}

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.{{cite web |title=Church of St Mary |url=https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101272651-church-of-st-mary-sundridge-with-ide-hill |website=British Listed Buildings |access-date=16 September 2022}}

Radnor House, previously known as Combe Bank, is a Grade I listed Palladian 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 grew up there.{{cite web |title=Combe Bank A Grade I Listed Building in Sundridge with Ide Hill, Kent |url=https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101243769-combe-bank-sundridge-with-ide-hill |website=British Listed Buildings |access-date=16 September 2022}} Radnor House remained a private home until the 1920s, and then became a convent, an independent school and a wedding venue.{{cite web |title=Combe Bank |url=https://forbetterforworse.co.uk/venue/combe-bank22/ |website=For Better For Worse |access-date=16 September 2022}}

• 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.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. He died at Fulham Palace and was buried at St. Mary's Church, where his tomb lies in the churchyard.
• 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.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.
• Christopher Wordsworth (1807–1885), the youngest brother of the famous poet William Wordsworth. Christopher would later become Bishop of Lincoln.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.
• William Spottiswoode (1825-1883), President of the Royal Society, lived at Combe Bank
• Ludwig Mond (1839-1909), industrial scientist, lived at Combe Bank
• Rt Hon Michael Fallon, MP (born 1952), Secretary of State for Defence, 2014–2017.{{cn|date=August 2020}}

Around 1910 an aerodrome with a three-bay timber-framed corrugated-iron clad hangar was opened north of Chevening Road, {{coord|51.2820|N|0.1277|E|format=dms|display=inline}}, 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 Company in August 1919. Around 1927 the factory building became a bus depot,{{cite map |title =Kent|map = TQ45NE – A|map-url = |date =|year = 1930–1945 |url = |scale =1:10,560 |series = Provisional Edition |publisher = Ordnance Survey}} but during World War II it reverted to military use with 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.{{cite book|last=Woodhead|first=Lindy|title=Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge|year=2008|publisher=Profile Books|isbn=978-1-86197-169-2|pages=147–8}} De Bolotoff married Rosalie Selfridge, daughter of London store owner Harry Selfridge, in 1918.{{NHLE|num=1244242|desc=3 Aircraft Hangars to Former Sundridge Aerodrome at Coombe Bank Farm|date=27 April 1988|accessdate=10 June 2012}}

{{Geographic location

|title = Nearest settlements

|Northwest = Biggin Hill

|North = Knockholt and Halstead

|Northeast = Otford

|West = Brasted

|Centre = Sundridge

|East = Riverhead

|Southwest = Toys Hill and Crockham Hill

|South = Ide Hill

|Southeast = Sevenoaks Weald

}}

• Radnor House Sevenoaks School

{{reflist}}

{{Commons category|Sundridge, Kent}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20051226131557/http://www.villagenet.co.uk/sevenoaks-weald/villages/sundridge.php Notes on Sundridge]
• [http://www.sundridgewithidehillpc.kentparishes.gov.uk/ Sundridge Parish Council] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714170159/http://www.sundridgewithidehillpc.kentparishes.gov.uk/ |date=14 July 2014 }}

{{Sevenoaks}}

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Category:Villages in Kent

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