TONBRIDGE (or TUNBRIDGE) WELLS, Kent, a fashionable watering-place and market-town, is situated in 51' 7' N. lat., 0° 15' E. long., distant 18 miles S.W. by S. from Maidstone, 36 miles S.S.E. from Londou by road, and 46 miles by the Hastings branch of the London and South-Easteni railway. The population of the town in 1S51 was10,587. The living is a perpetual curacy in the arehdeaconry of Maidstone and diocese of Canterbury.
The chnlybeate spring, to which the town of Tonbridge Wells owes its origin, was first noticed in the reign of James I., when the wells were sunk and inclosed, but the visitors lodged at Toubridge town, six miles distant. The soil is dry, and the air of the place is healthy, though somewhat cold. When Henrietta, queen of Charles I., visited the Wells, she and her suite remained under tents. Permanent habitations were subsequently erected in the immediate vicinity of the Wells. After the Restoration the place rapidly increased. A chapel was built at Tonbridgo Wells dedicated to King Charles the Martyr; a subscription school was established, and an assembly-room, coffee house, bowling-greens, and other places of amusement, were erected in the neighbourhood. The Wells, properly so called, are in the centre of the town, and near them are the markets, the chapel, the assembly-rooms, and the public walks or parades. The town-hall is it
commodious building. Different groups of houses, forming boundaries of the town, are distinguished by the names of Mount Zion, Mount Ephraim, Dlouut Pleasant, and Bishop's Down. Trinity church is a handsome stone building, erected in 1829. Christchurch is a new gothic edifice. There is also an Episcopal chapel. The Roman Catholics, Wesleyan Methodists, Baptists, Independents, and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, have places of worship. There are a Church of England Proprietary school; National, British, and Infant schools; a literary and scientific institute; a useful kuowledge society ; several librariesan infirmary and dispensary ; and a savings bank. A corn and geueral market is held on Friday. liorae-races are held annually. A horticultural society holds several exhibitions in the course of the year. Tonbridgo Wells is fatuous for toys and email articles turned in holly, pinm-tree, cherry-tree, sycamore, and various foreign woods, known as Tonbridge ware.