Thursday 25 April 2024

Our village was faced with trailers and vans parking on the wide area of pavement at the top of Stonewall Park Road. It created a hazard for pedestrians, and also blocked the view of vehicles trying to exit the road. Polite requests to the owners and visits from traffic wardens proved unsuccessful and so Ed Langridge had an environmentally-friendly idea of installing 4 planters. After getting clearance from Kent Highways, it led to a cooperative community initiative involving Speldhurst Parish Council, Langton Life, and the Langton Green Village Society. The photos show Ed Langridge and Neil Barrington-Johnson  putting on the last touches of paint. They had built the planters, mounted them onto railway sleepers for additional stability, and then filled them. They also show Lyn Dollimore, who chose the plants and planted them. Over 180 villagers have already said they like them.

See your village from the sky

From your Village Society

This "planet" image was taken by a drone flying above All Saints Church. The two links below each opens a 360 degree rotatable image of Langton Green and its wide surroundings; one from the West and one from the East. The images can be zoomed a little by using the mouse wheel.

From your Village Society

Each year your Village Society plants more daffodils

Langton Green lies just two miles from Royal Tunbridge Wells in an area of outstanding natural beauty. As a consequence, the village enjoys all the benefits of an active village community of around 2500 people, yet is within easy reach of the delights of the famous spa town, with its easy access to the City (train journey of around 55 minutes), the coast and the M25 motorway network.

Langton Green has a long history dating back to the 1300s where, just like its neighbour Tunbridge Wells, royalty used to come to stay and to live. The first Princess of Wales – Joanna, the Fair Maid of Kent and mother of King Richard II, is reported to have lived at The Hollonds in the village around 1353. In the second half of the 19th Century, Princess Louise, the 4th daughter of Queen Victoria, lived at Dornden in Langton Green for ten years with her husband, the Marquis of Lorne. The Queen visited them in 1876. Prince Andrew of Yugoslavia lived here (also at The Hollonds) in the 1950s and the village was also the home of Prince and Princess Weikersheim in the same period. So perhaps a claim should be made for our village to be called ‘Royal Langton Green’?

Decimus Burton has had an important influence on the village, designing at least two houses of great significance. The Hollonds is one (mentioned above) and Holmewood House is the other, now a well-known independent girls and boys school.

THE LANGTON GREEN VILLAGE SIGN

This website was created, and is maintained, by the Langton Green Village Society for the benefit of the village. If you have a news item or event which is about, from or happening in the village, you may contact us here.