WHEN Bexley Heritage Trust unveiled the new-look Hall Place following a £5.5m renovation, it was hailed as a triumph.

The 18-month project on the part Tudor/part Stuart house in Bourne Road, Bexley, created a new visitor centre and gallery, more museum space and opened up parts of the house previously closed to visitors.

But, more controversially, it created a new entrance to the historic house and gardens, which is now being criticised by older visitors who claim it is too far to get into the house and its riverside cafe.

One previously regular visitor, Les Burridge, 67, of Townley Road, Bexleyheath, says he has no plans to visit again “until something is done to alleviate the unnecessary route march to get in”.

But trust director Elizabeth Wedmore claims: “Once the landscaping works are mature, it will be a very pleasant walk and as much part of the visitor experience as the visit to the house itself.”

Instead of walking from the car park straight into the house from the side, visitors go from a new entrance off the car park, past the hothouse and nursery, through newly planted flowerbeds and through the visitor centre before reaching the new entrance in the Stuart part of the house, facing the River Cray.

Mr Burridge said: “My walking ability is not as good as it used to be and I do not appreciate being forced to walk all this extra distance.”

Ms Wedmore said the trust had consulted an access consultant when planning the new entrance.

She said there was a wheelchair available from the nursery.

She added: “We have benches along the path and outside the visitor centre and plan to add to them.”

But Mr Burridge described her explanation as “garbage” and said Ms Wedmore was trying to “excuse why visitors are forced to walk several times further to visit Hall Place house than used to be the case”.