Since 1952, Hill Hall, at Theydon Mount, in Essex, had been a women’s open prison whose unwilling guests included Christine Keeler. To architectural historians, this was indeed a fall from grace for an exceptional building that Nikolaus Pevsner, writing in the Architectural Review in 1955, hailed as one of the first classical Renaissance houses to be built in England.
Recognition of its architectural interest undoubtedly persuaded the Prison Commissioners not to demolish what survived of the property after a devastating fire in 1969 swept through the building, spreading rapidly round the roofs of the courtyard ranges, and leaving the interior a mass of collapsed debris. But, in the era before archaeologists had learned how to respond to such disasters (as they did later at Uppark and Windsor), the debris was cleared without any attempt to salvage or record either the fallen structure or the fragile remains of ceiling and wall finishes.
Consolidation of the fabric was subsequently started by the Ancient Monuments Branch within the Department of the Environment. In those days such work proceeded very slowly, so not too much damage had been done by 1981, when I was invited to set in hand both excavation and study of the surviving fabric, to elucidate both the evolution of the house and its significance.
Archaeology as immersive historical simulation