The Kentish village of Snodland is midway between Rochester and Maidstone. Our Illustration shows a new Gothic building there erected for the "New Jerusalem" or New Church Society of Snodland. The cost of the Church complete has been defrayed by the late Mrs. Hook and the Misses Hook, of Veles, conjointly with Colonel Holland, C.B., of Ivymeath. This adds one more to the many acts of benevolence of Mrs. Hook and her family to the village of Snodland. It is stated by a local journal that "not only are the streets and some of the public buildings in the town lighted by gas as a free gift of theirs, but that the British School, in which some 300 children are educated, is the property of and supported by these ladies; and to them Snodland is indebted for a new and capacious Temperance Hall in May-street, for a lofty and commodious Sunday School room, just completed, near the parish church, and for other public buildings; as well as for the artistic and ornamented clock tower on the Holborough-road, erected, some three years ago, in memory of the late Mr. Charles Townsend Book, to whom probably, more than to anyone else, Snodland owes its present and increasing prosperity."
The new church is somewhat similar in form and about the size of the present parish church at Snodland, except that the tower and the nave are more lofty. It has been constructed by Messrs. J.W. Walker and Sons, Francis-street, Tottenham-court-road. The interior fittings of this church, such as reredos, pulpit, lectern, font, altar-table, reading-desk, and the stained-glass east window, are peculiarly handsome and costly.
The Rev. J. J. Woodford, who until lately has been the Principal of the New Church College at Islington, is the minister of the New Church Society at Snodland.
Source: The Illustrated London News, No.2256—Vol. LXXXI, Saturday, July 29, 1882, p.124