In 1850, Henry Bannerman - scion of an enterprising Scottish family of farmers and distillers who, by the late 1820s, had created a cotton-trading and manufacturing empire based in Manchester - retired from the business and moved to Kent, where he had invested his profits in the Hunton Court estate, located in a thriving hop-growing area near Maidstone. 

By 1848, he had already enlarged and remodelled its 18th-century farmhouse, adding the imposing Georgian façade, with its central pediment, canted bay windows and balustraded parapet. The interior was refitted with delicate plasterwork and painted decorative panels depicting Classical scenes, foliage and flowers. 

Mr Bannerman lived at Hunton Court until he died in 1871, leaving the property to his wife for life and then to his nephew, Henry Campbell, on condition that he took the additional name of Bannerman, which he did in 1872.