It housed the Royal Military School of Music, training musicians for the British Army, which acquired the building in the mid-19th century.

[3] In 1709 the property was purchased by Sir Godfrey Kneller, court painter to British monarchs from Charles II to George I.

In 1757, the house was sold to Sir Samuel Prime, a prominent London lawyer, who, with his son of the same name, extended it significantly and landscaped the grounds.

He further expanded the house (to designs by Philip Hardwick), adding drawing rooms at the east and west ends of the building.

This third building on the site, which still stands today, is stone-corniced, casemented and constructed as to its ground floor central range and otherwise built of red bricks, all in the neo-Jacobethan style suitable to 19th and 20th century mansions of its scale.

Though Kneller Hall itself was generously funded by the state, the larger scheme to build district schools never came to fruition owing to political and religious conflict (see Newcastle Commission).