Edward Churchill
Edward Churchill bought Fernclyffe House in 1852, the year in which the house was built. By the 1850s he was proprietor of the Calverley Hotel and was also described as a corn dealer. The hotel connected him to the fashionable economy of Tunbridge Wells: visitors, transport, food supply, entertainment and the prestige of a resort with aristocratic and royal patronage.
The 1861 census places Churchill at Fernclyffe with his wife Elizabeth, a sister-in-law, a visitor and three live-in servants. The household composition reveals the purpose of the building: formal reception rooms supported business and social entertaining, while separate staircases and service spaces allowed staff to circulate discreetly. Churchill died at Fernclyffe in April 1869.
The Calverley Hotel connection
Churchill's earlier home and workplace stood at the meeting point of the old spa and the new planned town. In moving to Fernclyffe he crossed from public hospitality to private gentility. His story also shows that the Fair Mile was not simply an enclave of hereditary aristocracy, but of merchants, engineers, industrialists, hotel proprietors and professionals enriched by the expanding nineteenth-century economy.
Frank McClean
Frank McClean arrived at Fernclyffe in 1871 at a turning point in his life. Born in County Down on 13 November 1837, he was the only son of the distinguished engineer John Robinson McClean. He was educated at Westminster School, studied at Glasgow University under William Thomson — later Lord Kelvin — and then at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in mathematics in 1859. McClean entered the family engineering business and became a partner, but retired from professional engineering in 1870 so that he could devote his time to science, art and collecting.
In 1872 McClean enlarged Fernclyffe with the substantial three-storey addition on the eastern side of the house. Importantly, the extension incorporated the flat-roofed upper area associated with his astronomical observations, giving him a clear view of the night sky. He subsequently established the Fernclyffe Observatory, where he mounted a 15-inch With-Browning reflector together with a 6-inch Merz refractor on a substantial equatorial mounting.
At Fernclyffe, McClean experimented with electricity and increasingly concentrated on astronomical spectroscopy — the analysis of starlight to reveal the physical nature of stars. He designed a distinctive star spectroscope using a concave cylindrical lens. The instrument carried his name and was commercially produced by the London instrument maker John Browning. This work helped establish the scientific direction that later made McClean an important figure in the development of stellar spectroscopy.
In 1884 the McClean family left Fernclyffe for Rusthall House on the other side of Tunbridge Wells. There he created another observatory and laboratory, including equipment for solar spectroscopy. His work developed into systematic surveys of stellar spectra in both the northern and southern skies. He later presented a large double telescope — the Victoria Telescope, now generally known as the McClean Telescope — to the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope.
McClean travelled to the Cape in 1897 and continued his spectroscopic observations of southern stars. His wider programme of stellar spectroscopy led to the award of the Royal Astronomical Society's Gold Medal in 1899. He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and became an important benefactor of astronomical research and education.
Sir Francis Kennedy McClean
Frank McClean's son, Sir Francis Kennedy McClean (1876–1955), inherited his father's enthusiasm for astronomy but became best known as a pioneering aviator. On 10 August 1912 he created one of the most celebrated feats of early British aviation when he flew a seaplane up the River Thames, passing between the roadway and upper walkways of Tower Bridge before continuing beneath London Bridge and the other bridges towards Westminster. The achievement added to his reputation as an important pioneer of British aviation and naval flying.
For Fernclyffe, Frank McClean's importance is exceptional. During his thirteen years at the house, it was not simply a Victorian family villa but also a private scientific observatory. The surviving form of the house and the documentary record of the Fernclyffe Observatory connect the property directly with the emergence of astrophysics and astronomical spectroscopy in the late nineteenth century.
The Missing Years
This is the least understood period of the house. Nearly seventy years cannot responsibly be treated as an empty interval. A definitive account requires street directories, electoral registers, census schedules, probate records, rate books, newspaper advertisements, historic maps, the 1910 Finance Act valuation and the 1939 Register.
Concord College
Concord College was founded after the Second World War by Paul Oertel and Monica Carr-Taylor. The school moved to Tunbridge Wells in 1953. Fernclyffe's reception rooms became classrooms and common rooms, bedrooms became dormitories and staff accommodation, and the grounds provided recreation. From 1955 the school regularly accommodated about eighty resident students.
The curriculum included English, O-level and A-level subjects. Students came from countries including Sweden, Finland, Thailand, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Turkey, Greece, Pakistan, India, Switzerland and Venezuela. The house once associated with Victorian privacy became a place of shared study and international friendship.
The founders and the Bell years
Paul Oertel and Monica Carr-Taylor should be treated as equal founders. The school was sold to Frank Bell in 1968 or 1969, and Martin Horwood became principal. Concord expanded before moving to Acton Burnell in 1973 with approximately 130 students and eleven teachers.
National Provident Institution
On 18 December 1973 the house was acquired by National Provident Institution (NPI), a UK-based life assurance and pension company.
NPI wanted to use Fernclyffe House but it was not large enough to accommodate their plans. As a result, a two-storey brick office was added to the rear of the garden and the large garden was turned over to builders to create College Drive and the surrounding housing estate. The additional building was used as office and training space and as a Sports & Social Club for the benefit of staff in the local Tunbridge Wells offices.
NPI later demutualised, creating National Provident Life Limited to manage existing policies and NPI Limited to sell new policies under the NPI brand. The presence in Tunbridge Wells was no longer required, so the decision was taken to sell Fernclyffe House.
John and Juli Branch
In 2003 applications sought conversion from offices into eight two-bedroom apartments, demolition of a rear extension, two townhouses, a six-bay garage block and two further apartments. The scheme was refused.
In 2004, by contrast, permission was granted for change of use from offices to a single residential unit, demolition of the two-storey rear extension, and associated listed-building alterations.
John and Juli Branch, who had made significant wealth from their ownership of an event and hospitality company, worked hard with architects Madgwick & Dottridge to restore the training centre to accommodate their family life. The remarkable work undertaken saw changes to every room, with the ambition of returning the property to its former grand Victorian-villa character.
Michael and Emma Smith
Records show that the house had been marketed for sale in 2011, 2017 and 2020 without success. Although the property had undergone a transformation by its previous owners, its period rooms lacked some of the modern open-plan living which had become more fashionable. On 7 May 2021 retirees Michael and Emma became proprietors. Having recently sold their insurance business, they were looking for a project to establish their new lives together in Royal Tunbridge Wells.
In 2022, working with the previous architect, Madgwick & Dottridge, proposals were submitted to replace the existing roof and leadwork, repair the masonry and windows, create several bathrooms, rewire throughout, install a commercial heating system and renew internal services. Additions were also made to the property by demolishing the wooden conservatory and creating a study, a triple garage, pool house with gym and sauna, and entrance gates.