Church of King Charles the Martyr, Royal Tunbridge Wells Church of King Charles the Martyr, Royal Tunbridge Wells The Church of King Charles the Martyr is a Church of England parish church in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. It is a Grade I listed building. In the 1670s, Tunbridge Wells had few permanent structures when it started to receive visits from members of the English Royal Family. The church was built on land belonging to Viscountess Purbeck as a chapel of ease for those visiting The Pantiles and was opened in 1676 after being constructed by Thomas Neale. It was dedicated to King Charles the Martyr: the cult of
Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells came to his attention. Despite being described as the "quintessential Englishman" because of his writing style and having his letters regularly published, his identity was never known because he would only identify himself as "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells". However, some reports have popularly rumoured that this person was a retired colonel who served in the British Indian Army during the British Raj. In 2014, the "Kent and Sussex Courier" claimed that the originator of "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" was the retired British Army colonel George Thomas Howe, who had developed a skill for letter writing about apartheid after five years