Champions Place, Including Attached Terrace, Terrace Walling And Steps

Champions Place is a large house, currently used as a private residential care home, located in Limpsfield Chart on Kent Hatch Road. It was built in 1893 in Tudor style by architect Mervyn Edmund Macartney for H Hemmings Johnson and was originally called "Champions". Around 1913-14 the building was enlarged and altered in matching style and materials, probably by architect Granville Streatfeild of Westerham, for Sir Benjamin Cohen, a Barrister and King's Counsel. These later additions comprise a Billiard Room and extension to the service end, a loggia and balcony to the garden front, and some internal reworking.

The building is constructed of sandstone with a tiled roof hipped to one end and five large sandstone chimneystacks. It is two storeys with attics, presenting an asymmetrical composition with irregular fenestration of stone mullioned windows. The plan form features a corridor and staircase to the entrance front with major rooms facing the garden front.

The north-west or entrance front has a large gable to the right with a second-floor window now extended to serve as a fire escape exit, and two smaller windows to lower floors. To the left is a projecting two-storey entrance porch with a finial to the gable, a round-headed opening under a drip-mould to the first floor, and a four-centred arched doorcase with outer double doors and an internal 12-panelled door. The adjoining section is set back with a 6-light dormer, five pairs of mullioned windows to the first floor lighting the staircase, and one window below. At the extreme left are two tall gables with finials and mullioned windows, and two four-centred arched doorcases.

The south-west elevation has three casements to the first floor, two mullioned and transomed casements to the ground floor, and the end bay features a catslide roof.

The south-east or garden front has a left gable with a 3-light window to the second floor, 4-light to the first floor, and two 2-light windows to the ground floor. The adjoining bay to the right has one 2-light window to the first floor, a two-centred arched door, and a square bay with a 3-light mullioned and transomed window. Two projecting gables feature: the left one with a 4-light mullioned and transomed window with a tablet above and four-light mullion below; the right one with a 5-light mullioned window to the first floor and central 5-light and two 2-light mullioned and transomed windows to the ground floor. Between these gables are two hipped dormers with 3-light mullions to the first floor and an entrance opening onto a balcony over a wooden loggia. The balcony railings are late 20th-century and the loggia has been glazed between the posts. At the extreme right is a section of three bays with two hipped dormers with triple windows and mullioned windows, two of the ground-floor windows being mullioned and transomed.

The north-east front has two mullioned windows.

Attached to the south-east front is a terrace with York stone paving, terrace wall with tooled stone coping, and two flights of steps.

The interior remains largely unaltered since 1914. A large straight-flight oak staircase with turned balusters, pilasters, and Jacobean-style panelling dominates the hall. The former study in the south-west corner features a wooden bolection-moulded fireplace with a metal hood. The former Library in the south-east corner contains a stone bolection-moulded fireplace and overmantel with a painting signed "A Lageo" thought to depict workmen levelling the ground to build the house, flanked by snake-shaped metal candle sconces and original bookcases with pilasters and panelling. The large living room has an elaborate carved bressumer with coving, carved brackets dated 1914, pilasters, a stone four-centred arched fireplace with mutule and Tudor rose decoration, and two built-in cupboards with serpentine shelves and panelled doors. The adjoining former Dining Room has a large bolection-moulded stone fireplace in a wooden surround with high-relief floral panel and pilasters. The former Billiard Room, the last major ground-floor room, features an oak ceiling with moulded and chamfered beams, Jacobean-style panelling rising almost to full height with a moulded cornice forming a plate shelf, and a stone bolection-moulded fireplace in a wooden surround with mutule frieze, an overmantel of linenfold panelling, and fluted pilasters.

A painted wooden well back staircase serves the upper floors. The service end retains original features including a silver safe, tiled kitchen with original wooden fireplace, and tiled larder with metal rail for hanging meat.

The first floor contains a former Master's Bedroom with a stone arched fireplace with blank shields in spandrels within wooden surrounds with fielded panels, and a Mistress' Bedroom with a bolection-moulded fireplace set in a panelled recess. Two stone fireplaces with wooden surrounds featuring mutule and paterae decoration are also present on this floor.

The attic retains two fireplaces with tiled surrounds—one pink and one blue—and a series of smaller metal firegrates.

H Hemmings Johnson owned the property from 1893 until around 1913-14. Sir Benjamin Cohen then occupied it from this date until the early 1940s, when it was purchased by the Courtney family, who changed the name from "Champions" to "Champions Place". In October 1951 the building was purchased on behalf of the Ministry of Health to serve as an annexe of Warlingham Psychiatric Hospital. It is currently in use as a residential care home.