Wedding Photographer Tunbridge Wells — The Pantiles, the High Weald and Hever Castle
Royal Tunbridge Wells is Kent’s most prosperous and most architecturally distinguished spa town — a Regency-period inland resort developed from the 1630s discovery of the chalybeate spring, whose Pantiles — the colonnaded promenade of Georgian and Victorian shops with the original sandstone pavement — constitutes one of the most complete surviving English spa town commercial streetscapes of the Georgian period; surrounded by the High Weald AONB’s ancient sandstone country of sunken lanes, ancient oak woodland and Kentish ragstone villages. For Tunbridge Wells wedding photography, the town’s Georgian Pantiles colonnades, the Rusthall Common’s dramatic sandstone rock outcrops immediately west and the High Weald’s concentration of Tudor and castle wedding venues — Hever Castle, Penshurst Place, Scotney Castle and Bodiam Castle — within a twenty-mile radius provide portrait settings of exceptional topographical and historical range.
The Pantiles, the Calverley Grounds and the Georgian Townscape
The Pantiles — the Lower Walk colonnade of Georgian and Victorian shopfronts with the original sandstone Pantile paving and the Bath Square spring’s chalybeate source at the south end — provides the primary Tunbridge Wells urban portrait setting: the arcaded colonnade’s shade in summer, the Georgian-to-Victorian facade sequence along the Walk and the raised upper walkway above the original promenade create portrait compositions of English spa town Georgian architecture of considerable completeness. The Calverley Grounds’ park designed by Decimus Burton (1835) immediately behind the Calverley Road provide public garden portrait settings with the Victorian park pavilion and the pleasure grounds.
Rusthall Common Rocks, Hever Castle and the High Weald
Rusthall Common’s sandstone rock formations — the Toad Rock, the High Rocks and the Wellington Rocks’ dramatic Tunbridge Wells Sandstone outcrops on the common’s western edge, accessed by footpath from the town — provide a specific geological portrait setting of Wealden sandstone landscape character immediately accessible from the town centre. Hever Castle — the moated medieval castle at Hever six miles west, childhood home of Anne Boleyn, with the 1903 Italian Garden’s loggia, the yew maze and the lake — provides the most celebrated High Weald castle and garden portrait setting within reach. Penshurst Place’s Italian garden and the Scotney Castle ruin above its moat provide further High Weald portrait destinations.