History

Mereworth’s Grade I Listed church of Saint Lawrence was consecrated in August 1746. This neo-Palladian structure replaced a mediaeval church that had once stood about a kilometre to the east. The only known images of the old church are thumbnail sketches on 16th and 17th Century maps. These show a church very much like others in the Medway valley. It had a square tower with no spire, and a nave and chancel. The chancel was probably the original stone chapel dedicated to Saint Lawrence that had been attached to the original Mereworth Castle. It is likely that this chapel dated from the late 12th Century and replaced the earlier, possibly wooden, pre-conquest church recorded in the Domesday Book.

In the 1720s, John Fane (later 7th Earl of Westmorland), rebuilt Mereworth Castle. For two decades the old church stood opposite its stables at the north front of the new castle. In 1743, however, Fane petitioned the bishop of Rochester to pull down the old church, which, he claimed, was ancient and decaying, and to replace it with a new church in a more convenient position in the village. He probably employed his architect, Roger Morris, to design the new church, which had two crypts to house Fane’s family and ancestors, and room to accommodate the best monuments from the old church. The internal 18th Century décor, most of which has survived, may have been painted by Francesco Sleter, whose memorial plaque is on the south wall of the church. The new church was being built during the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, and several coded symbols in its décor reflect Fane’s Jacobite leanings.

Apart from Fane’s choice of glass in the mausoleum and in the semi-circular window above the altar, most of the stained glass is 19th Century, and in memory of families such as the Hornes and Stapletons. Unusually, the 19th Century glass depicts three resurrection scenes – that of Jairus’s daughter, of Lazarus and that of our Lord himself. Of the brass, the oldest is on the mausoleum floor and depicts the 14th Century John de Mereworth. In the vestry, the 15th Century Shosmyth brass contains the earliest-known depiction of the Skinners Company Coat of Arms.

As well as the graves of the Viscounts Falmouth and Torrington, and of the 2nd Baron Mereworth, our churchyard contains the grave of Rear-Admiral Charles Davis Lucas, the first winner of the Victoria Cross.