John Champneys

Sir John Champneys (1495–1556) was City of London Sheriff in 1522 and Lord Mayor of London in 1534, when he was knighted.

A merchant, he began the building of Hall Place, Bexley, in about 1537. The son of Robert Champneys of Chew Magna, Somerset, he was a member of the Worshipful Company of Skinners. A contemporary chronicler, John Stow, noted that he was blind in later life: a divine judgment for having added 'a high tower of brick' to his house in Mincing Lane, 'the first that I ever heard of in any private man's house, to overlook his neighbours in this city.'

He was buried on 8 October 1556 at St Mary the Virgin, Bexley.^[1]

References

 "Champneys, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.