Danson House or Danson Manor is a Georgian mansion (today a Grade I listed building) in Danson Park, to the west of Bexleyheath in the London Borough of Bexley, south-east London.
Originally called Danson Hill, the Palladian villa was designed by leading architect Sir Robert Taylor and constructed in the 1760s for sugar merchant and vice-chairman of the British East India Company, Sir John Boyd. It stood in extensive grounds - parts of which today form the public Danson Park - landscaped by the famous Capability Brown in 1761.
After Sir John died in January 1800 (being buried in St Mary's churchyard, Lewisham), his son sold the estate in 1807 to a retired army captain John Johnston. In 1829, it passed to Johnston's son Hugh who in turn sold it to railway engineer Alfred Bean in 1862. Bean was the driving force behind the Bexleyheath Railway Company and chairman of Bexley Local Board, and envisaged transforming the 582 acre (2.4 km²) estate into a residential suburb. Outlying areas were gradually developed but the central area of the estate remained in Bean's family after his death in 1890 until it was acquired by Bexley Urban District Council for £16,000 in 1924. The park was opened to the public in 1925, while the house was used for civil defence purposes during World War Two.
When the house was acquired by English Heritage in 1995, it was in a dangerously delapidated condition, having been uninhabited since 1923. It was painstakingly restored in a lengthy £4m project, reopened in Spring 2005, and is now managed by a charity, the Bexley Heritage Trust (also responsible for Hall Place, east of Bexleyheath).
The estate's stable block is now a public house, the Danson Stables.
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Last updated: 10-24-2005 02:55:13
