Down House - The History of Down House

The History of Down House

In the 17th century, a parcel of land including most of the current property was acquired by a Kentish yeoman family, who are thought likely to have built a farmhouse there. Some flint built walls may date from this period. The date for this is given as 1681, but a 1933 history of Downe parish states that in 1651 Thomas Manning sold an area of land including the property to John Know the elder for £345 (equivalent to £37,417 in present day terms), a price which is unlikely to have included a house. John Know was a yeoman in good standing, and probably built a house on the property. In 1653 it was inherited by his son Roger, then in 1743 the marriage of Mary Know passed the property to the family of Bartholomew of West Peckham in the Weald. In 1751 Leonard Bartholomew sold the uninhabited house on to Charles Hayes of Hatton Garden.

The property was acquired by the businessman and landowner George Butler in 1778, and it is thought that he rebuilt and enlarged the house: in 1781 he paid the highest window tax in Downe. Around this time it was apparently called the Great House. After Butler died in 1783 the property changed hands several times, then in 1819 it went to Lieut.-Col. John Johnson, C.B., colonel of engineers in the Hon. East India Company, Bombay establishment. In 1837 Johnson emigrated to "Lake Erie near Dunville in Upper Canada", and passed what was now called Down House on to the incumbent parson of the parish, the Rev. James Drummond. The house was re-roofed and brought into good order under the supervision of Edward Cresy, an architect who lived nearby. Around 1840 Drummond left the property vacant and put it up for auction, but it was unsold and lay empty for two years.