Horsmans Place

Horsmans Place was an estate situated south of Dartford High Street, in Lowfield near a stream called Cranford. For several centuries the main residence was an early Elizabethan mansion.

The Elizabethan mansion was built on the site of an existing building by John Bere in 1551. After the estate had been sold off in small lots and the mansion had suffered years of neglect, it was demolished and replaced by a smaller house in the late 18th century.

The principal front of the mansion faced the west, and was originally approached by an avenue of lime trees from Short-Hill, near the Spital-house. Some of the tree stumps remained until James Storey's time (1780s). A long gallery ran along the whole front of the mansion, into which the several apartments opened. A large court in front of the mansion nearly extended across the present street, rendering the road narrow and inconvenient; but on rebuilding the house, James Storey set back his walls in a line with the rest of the street. Hasted says on the gateway, entering the court, were the initials of the founder, J. B. [John Bere] and the date 1551.

At the time it was demolished a record of this family appeared on an oaken beam, to the following effect, "soli deo honor et gloria Jhon Beer, in the yer of our Loyd mcccccxxxviii. On the pulling down of the gate-house, a part of the materials, with some of the letters of the inscription, were purchased by an inhabitant of Horton Kirby, and affixed on the walls of his house, where they were still to be seen in 1844.

In the reign of Edward II (1307–1327) the manor was owned by Thomas de Luda. Towards the end of the reign of Edward III (1327–1733) it had passed to John Horsman, and it is likely that he built a large new dwelling. It is after this building that the manor gained its name.

Tomas Horsman, John Horsman's son and heir, died without children at the beginning of the reign of Henry VI. So he willed the estate to his widow Margaret. She remarried to —— Shardlow, and upon her death c. 1640 bequeathed it to her kinsman Thomas Brown, whose daughter and sole heir Katherine, annexed it to the patrimony of Robert Blague, one of the Barons of the Exchequer. They had a son Barnaby Blague who inherited the estate and sold it to John Bere in 1541 (the 33rd year of the reign of Henry VIII).

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