St Peter asleep in the garden
St Mary, Higham, Kent
Austere church in a rather bleak setting on the edge of the marshes to the north of the Medway Towns. Redundant, it is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
Inside, there is the surprise of outstanding windows of national significance by Robert Bayne from the 1860s - it looks the work of thirty years later.
My great-great-grandmother Mary Ann Harrall was born in Higham, and baptised in this church on 25th August 1850. When she was eight years old, the parish's most famous resident, Charles Dickens, moved to Higham. He lived the rest of his life in the parish, and died there in 1870.
There were still Harralls in the parish to appear on the WWI roll of honour.
St Peter asleep in the garden
St Mary, Higham, Kent
Austere church in a rather bleak setting on the edge of the marshes to the north of the Medway Towns. Redundant, it is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
Inside, there is the surprise of outstanding windows of national significance by Robert Bayne from the 1860s - it looks the work of thirty years later.
My great-great-grandmother Mary Ann Harrall was born in Higham, and baptised in this church on 25th August 1850. When she was eight years old, the parish's most famous resident, Charles Dickens, moved to Higham. He lived the rest of his life in the parish, and died there in 1870.
There were still Harralls in the parish to appear on the WWI roll of honour.