A small thatched church, St George’s, Langham, near Gillingham, was built by a local family in 1921, partly in memory of sacrifices made in the Great War.

On Saturday and Sunday, 13 and 14 September the church was open to the public as part of the National Heritage Open Days Weekend Scheme.

 At the request of Gillingham Local History Society the Friends of Langham Church agreed to the opening.

From visitors donations and the sale of booklets about the church, produced by Gillingham Local History, £150 was raised in aid of the church.

  It was built by the Manger family in Langham Lane only a few hundred yards on the left of the Buckhorn Weston road, not far from Stock Hill House (now a hotel), where the family lived.

 The church is usually open at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide.

 When in 1890 Alfred Manger retired to Stock Hill House from Hong Kong and London, he intended to build a church on his land for Langham and his estate employees and, when the 1914 – 18 war came, also as a war memorial.

In the war he lost his youngest son, Lt John Kenneth Manger, nephew George Bredon Kitson and son-in-law Capt Herbert Lancaster.

 He died in 1917 and his wife Elizabeth in 1919. Named after St George, patron saint of soldiers, the church was built in 1921 over their grave by their eldest son, Lt Col Charles Harwood Manger, who died in 1929. His son, Lt Col William Bourne Manger, last of the name, died in 1954.

The church was one of few built so soon after the Great War and probably the only thatched one of that era. The architect, Mr C E Ponting of Marlborough, had it thatched after one on the Isle of Wight.

An older historic link with the church is the Manger family descent from an 18th century German pastor, Dr Johan Jakob Plitt, who preached a sermon on the eve of the battle of Lutzen in Germany in 1759. He fled to England during the wars. His daughter married John Manger, Alfred’s ancestor, in the late 18th century.

 Dr Plitt’s sermon printed in 1759 in original German with English translation is in the Gillingham museum. The church trustees in the church history state that it was one man’s concept borne out by his family “to give strength and courage in adversity and thanksgiving for the days of peace. May St George’s church live on as a symbol of Christian faith which can look beyond the horrors of war.”