The house that John Champneys built

The house was built some time between 1537 and 1540 using a large quantity of recycled medieval carved stone. Renovations in the 1950s revealed moulded voussoirs, broken shafts, bases and capitals amongst the building rubble. This could have come from Lesnes Abbey or Dartford Priory which were both nearby or St Mary's, Aldgate in London, where Sir John's influence as an Alderman may have helped him secure the stones. House building was always an extremely expensive undertaking and access to cheap materials on or near the estate would have been a great advantage. What is more, Sir John had already shown his taste for architecture building a 'tower' as his London home. So it is possible he already had good official and trade contacts. The pattern of the house was basically medieval. At the centre of the building was the great hall. This was the busiest room in the house, where family, guests and servants all ate and some of the servants may have slept. At the west end there would have been a dais on which Sir John would have sat in state. Behind this stood the parlour, which constituted the family's private quarters with the bedroom in the storey above, reached by a spiral staircase in the turret. A small chapel was attached to the north. The hall was lit by a single large bay window in the north wall, allowing light to fall on the high table. At the end of the hall, beneath a minstrel's gallery, stood the buttery from which proceeded the east wing, the lower portion of which constituted the kitchen, although this may initially have been in a separate building as a precaution against fire. The upper storey served as the servants' quarters. A house such as Hall Place would have had numerous servants kept for show as much as for their usefulness. Given the absence of any communications system, servants had to live and sleep within calling distance of the family quarters.

The house built by Sir John Champneys was a working economic unit, its size proportionate to the estate it administered; abutted by farm buildings and surrounded by high walls. What gardens there were, other than herb and vegetable gardens would have contained few plants, but rather heraldic statuary and topiaries. Central to the house's function would have been a steward's room, where rents were received and a record room, where archives could be stored. If medieval practice was followed, at this period at least, these might have been the hall (or possibly the parlour) and the chapel respectively.

Richard Champneys sold Hall Place at the end of the Civil War to Robert Austen, a London merchant.