HALES PLACE
st. STEPHEN’S, HACKINGTON
Sir Edward, 3rd Baronet Hales of Woodchurch,
bought the Elizabethan mansion, “Place House" in
1675 from Colonel Thomas Hales whose father had
bought it from the Manwoods. This mansion was
replaced in 1766-68 by "a new sumptuous ediface
built on a more eligible site" (Seymour, A N
Topographical, Historical & Commercial Survey of
Kent, 1776) by Sir Edward, 5th Baronet. The new
mansion house, “more fit for the residence of a
monarch than for a simple country gentleman"
(Cozens, Through the Isle of Thanet, &c., 1793),
was fronted by a terrace overlooking the City and
the Cathedral. On the southern side of the house,
now named "Hales Place” was a large chapel: the
Roman Catholics of the area attended Services
there. The Hales family in the days of Edward, 1st
Baronet Hales (died 1654) had been the wealthiest
in Kent but, from the time of the Civil Wars more
of their properties in Kent and elsewhere were
increasingly being sold to raise money. The building
of the new mansion exacerbated the on-coming
poverty.
After Sir Edward died in 1802 he was succeede-
by his son, the 6th Baronet, at whose death in
1829 the Baronetcy became extinct. The alienated
estates passed to the son of his youngest sister,
Edouard de Morlaincourt, who changed his name
to Edward Hales. His only daughter, Mary Barbara
Felicity, inherited the property in 1837 when she
was only one year old.
Educated in a French convent, MBF became an
inconveniently religious woman and when she came
of age became a novice in the Carmelite convent in
Paris. Determined to build a convent at Hales Place,

The New Mansion House, extended by the Society of Jesus, 1879 
after she had been professed and taken the solemn
vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, she trans-
ferred from Paris to the English Carmelite convent
at Valognes. Although a nun under the vow of
poverty she returned to Hales Place and started to
build the convent; she attempted — until her self-
willed and uncompromising temperament ruined
the plan — to bring the Carmelite nuns to Canter-
bury. Having failed in her first scheme she succeeded
in getting a dispensation from her vows of
obedience and poverty: she had never been
0*"-dient and could hardly be called poor. She then
st...ted a Benedictine Priory on the partially-built
Carmelite structure. ln 1880 she declared herself
bankrupt and the last of her estates, Hales Place,
was sold to the exiled Jesuits from Lyons. They
greatly extended the mansion house on the northern
side to form "St Mary's College".
Slightly above and to the north-west of the house
the old dove cote* had been coverted by Miss
Hales into a small chapel. This circular building
with its curious construction, using flint and brick
and decorated with animal knuckle bones, was
converted by the Jesuits into a mortuary chapel.
ln 1928-29,four years after the Jesuits had returned
to France, the buildings of the estate were
demolished. The "petite chapelle rustique" in the
cemetery in which the mortal remains of Sir
Edward, 5th Baronet Hales, the Dowager Lady
Frances and Mary Barbara Felicity Hales, removed
from the house chapel, are buried, was given to the
Catholic parish of Canterbury. Mass was celebrated
there annually as promised by the then Catholic
priest but the whole property slowly fell into disuse
and became the victim of the weather and of
vandals.lt is now thoroughly restored and sincr
1984 the property of the Canterbury City Councii.
It is used as a centre of Ecumenical worship.
*This is its nomenclature on the 1841, Tithe Com-
mutation Map; Seymour (op. cit.) refers to it in
1776 as a Belvedere.
March 1988
An extended version of this short account is pub-
lished in “Bygone Kent”, vol. 8, No. 72, (D6cerni1r:!
7.987) (Meresborough Books) and a book, "Tin-
Ha/es of Ha/es P/ace, St Stephen ’s, Hackingmn”, is
in preparation.