Sharpe, Pritchard and Company , solicitors

In 1246 the first inclosure for a park was made at Kempton. Later the park covered much of the area north-east of Kempton village and extended into Hanworth. During the Middle Ages the royal manor-house of Kempton may have stood within the park near the site of the present Kempton Park House. Part of the estate has been used as a racecourse since 1876.

In 1697 Sir Thomas Grantham, lord of Kempton manor, built 'a fair house' at Sunbury, and this was probably the first of many large houses which were built in the parish. Sunbury was almost the farthest upstream of the Thames villages which became popular with the upper and middle classes in the 18th century, and it never became fashionable in the manner of Richmond, Twickenham, or Hampton. A little colony of exiled Huguenots probably accounted for a fair proportion of the gentlefolk in the parish during the earlier years of the century. By 1816 it was possible for a perhaps over-effusive writer to comment on the 'long range of fine domestic structures' facing the river and to add that other 'ornamental dwellings of this splendid village' lay farther inland. Among the finest of the houses was Sunbury Place (now Sunbury Court and occupied by the Salvation Army), which lay farthest downstream towards Hampton. There was a house on the site by 1754, from which some features in the main block of the present building seem to survive. It had been much enlarged by 1816, when it was said to show four fronts with an ornamental pavilion at each corner. The pavilions have been demolished and wings have been added on either side of the sevenbay south front. The house is of red brick with stone and cement-rendered dressings and has a central pediment to the south front.
From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3: Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington (1962), pp. 51-53 (available online).