Hales Place at Hackington and its Predecessors

AND ITS PREDECESSORS. 203 The Hales family retained possession of the old house untU, in 1759, Sir Edward Hales thought fit to buUd himseU and his successors the mansion known thenceforth as Hales Place, which stood on rising ground a little to the north of the old Place House. The new mansion being buUt, Sir Edward proceeded to puU down the old house, which Hasted in his History of Kent states stood close to the west end of the church. When, a few months ago, the foundations were being dug for some shops at the side of the present drive and close to the west end of the church, the writer saw some foundations laid bare which, from the character of the bricks, were almost certainly those of a Tudor building, and there can be httle doubt that they represented the remains of Manwood's " Great " or Place House. Hales Place, of which a reproduction of an engraving, dated 1830, is given herewith, remained in the possession of the Hales family untU late in the nineteenth century, the last representative being an old Miss Hales. The baronetcy became extinct in 1829. Of this Mansion, Cousins, in his Tour, says that " U ever it be finished, it wiU be more fit for the residence of a monarch than for a simple country gentleman ". Sir Edward Hales, in the eighteenth century, introduced the famous, or infamous, impostor Cagliostro to his house to paint frescoes for him, but later he found the Itahan on too tender terms with his daughter, and turned him out. After Miss Hales died, Hales Place feh into the hands of the Jesuits, who buUt on to the original house very largely, for use as a CoUege. They also buUt a Chapel, and this much-extended edifice is shown in our last illustration. The Jesuits left in 1928, and the house and estate feU into speculative hands, and now Hales Place and St. Mary's CoUege, as the Jesuits caUed their extension, have been swept away and have foUowed the Archdeacon's House and Manwood's Place House into obhvion.