Kingston the Cradle of England

Kingston and All Saints Church: their place in history

The town

Although Kingston had some strategic importance as a river crossing from Roman times onwards, its place in national history was secured during the Saxon era.

The first major development took place in AD 838, when King Egbert of Wessex held what was called a “Great Council” at Kingston (then known as Cyninges-tun, or the King’s homestead). The Council was attended by the King’s nobles and a delegation of bishops headed by Coelnoth, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was an important part of the process of settling the relationship between Church and State which has persisted to the present day.

Kingston’s history as a place of royal coronations began with Edward the Elder (son of Alfred the Great) - tradition has it that he was crowned in AD 902 although modern research suggests the date was actually AD 900. Although Edward made great efforts to unite what is now England under one crown, it was his son Athelstan – crowned at Kingston in AD 925 – who finally achieved that feat and became the first man who could properly be called King of England. In all, seven Saxon Kings are reputed to have been crowned in Kingston – the last of them being Ethelred the Unready, crowned in AD 979.

The essential form of the ritual laid down for these Kingston coronations has continued through the centuries, and the form of service used for the coronation of the present Queen in 1953 included prayers, an anthem and the lesson from that ritual.

Kingston never regained the position in national life it had occupied for this period of Saxon history, but it continued to play an important historical part. For example, the Treaty of Kingston in 1219 secured the reign of Henry III against French challenge; and the town’s proximity to Hampton Court made it an important residence for courtiers in Tudor times.

The church

There has been a church on the site of the present All Saints since at least the ninth century AD, and the outline of the Saxon Church of St Mary (which finally collapsed in 1730) is marked out in the churchyard.

The present church is built on the site of a large church built in about AD 1120 by Gilbert the Norman, Sheriff of Surrey, of which little now remains. The earliest work now visible in the church is the casing of the four tower pillars round the altar, and the tower staircase. This dates from the 13th century and conceals older, Norman, work. In about 1370, the Norman nave was pulled down and a new nave was constructed with aisles. During the next century, the 15th, the east end of the church began to take its present shape. During the middle of this century, the chapel on the south, which is now the baptistery, was built and the arcade of three pillars erected. A few years later, the chapel on the north side (now the Memorial Chapel of the East Surrey Regiment) was built for the fraternity of the Holy Trinity.

Many changes were made to the interior of the church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but no further structural alterations were made until the second half of the nineteenth century when the two transepts were enlarged and the height of the east and west pillars under the tower was raised. The exterior of the church was also extensively rebuilt to a design by J L Pearson, who had designed Truro Cathedral. Much of the stained glass in the windows of the church dates from this period; it is said that many of the figures, particularly in the fine West Window, are based on local worthies of the time.

Throughout its life the church has been, and continues to be, at the centre of Kingston life, in all its apects: civic, commercial, cultural, philanthropic and educational.

The church houses a large number of memorials and monuments telling the story of individuals great and small over the centuries since it was founded. Among the more notable memorials are:

• a memorial brass to Robert Skerne, a local merchant, and his wife Joanna, illegitimate daughter of Edward III
• the tomb of Sir Antony Benn (1558—1618), Recorder of Kingston and London
• a memorial to Henry Davidson (1771—1827), prominent London trader in sugar (and slaves)
• a memorial to George Bate, who achieved the remarkable feat of serving as physician to Charles I, Oliver Cromwell and Charles II
• a memorial plate to the ten children, all of whom died in infancy, of Rev Edmund Staunton, a vicar of Kingston in the seventeenth century who later became President of Corpus Christi College Oxford
• a simple memorial stone to Cesar Picton (d. 1836), who became one of the earliest wealthy black men in the country
• a statue of Lady Theodosia, wife of Lord Liverpool (Prime Minister from 1812 to 1827, and the third longest serving Prime Minister ever)