Hall Place is a former stately home, today a Grade I listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument, beside the River Cray on the outskirts of Crayford, south-east of Bexleyheath and north-east of Old Bexley. It is in the London Borough of Bexley in south-east London.
The house dates back to around 1540 when wealthy merchant Sir John Champneys, Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1534, used stone recycled from a nearby former monastery, Lesnes Abbey, to build himself a country house on a site where a manor house was recorded some 300 years earlier in 1241.
Alterations to Champneys’ house were made in 1560. In 1649, the house was sold to another wealthy City merchant, Sir Robert Austen (1587–1666), who added a second wing built of red bricks, doubling the size of the house but without trying to harmonise the two halves built in highly contrasting architectural styles. He was created 1st Baronet, of Hall Place in Bexley, on 10 July 1660 and briefly held the office of High Sheriff of Kent.
Hall Place also has 65 hectares of landscaped gardens and grounds including a topiary lawn, herb garden, tropical garden and long herbaceous cottage garden-styled borders. The gardens also feature the Queen’s Beasts topiary display. The former walled gardens includes a tropical house and a large vegetable garden. Model gardens have been created to show visitors how to make use of space in small urban gardens. Specimen trees in the grounds include an Indian Bean Tree (Catalpa bignonioides), a Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), and a Black Poplar (Populus nigra) – planted to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 by the local Mayor and the Deputy Lieutenant Of Bexley.
Three ghosts allegedly inhabit the building, including Edward, the Black Prince.
The site has achieved a Green Flag Award for excellence for park and gardens every year since the awards were introduced in 1996.
The Hall Place playing fields are home of Old St Marys FC and Kingfisher JFC/Colts.
