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 Halstead is believed to have originated as a secondary settlement in late Saxon times. This would have been as a series of woodland clearances on top of the North Downs, outliers from the older Darenth Valley settlements at Otford and Shoreham. Its economic centre in mediaeval times was the manor house, later rebuilt as Halstead Place, and since demolished. The site lies next to that of the demolished old church, in the Halstead Place School grounds. To the south lies Halstead park, formerly part of the Halstead Place estates, and possibly a deer park as far back as the 13th century.
 Halstead was a small and poor parish, whose expansion has taken place in two phases. The first is related to fruit growing, from 1850 to 1914. The second is from 1920, and is more closely related to commuter housing than to village economy.
Its pre-1850 housing is scattered, and includes former farmhouses at Widmores in Church Road (about 1700, the rear 50 years older) and Colgates (from about 1600, refronted 1796). The older part of Halstead Hall in Station Road was built in 1801 by a retired farmer. The flint cottages around the village green were built in the 1830s by the owner of Halstead Place, as was the substantial red brick Village House, set back near them.
 Fruitgrowing came to dominate Halstead in the second half of the 19th century. This was driven by the growth and accessibility of London, with falling sugar prices stimulating the jam industry. Halstead became well known for strawberries, and for the damson trees (skegs) that lined the roads. Rows and pairs of cottages in Station Road and Otford Lane testify to the agricultural growth, including Hazel Cottages and another flint row beginning with the Rose and Crown in Otford Lane. Further east along Otford Lane there is a scattering of more isolated cottages across the fields. Many of these are successors to smallholders huts, erected in conjunction with the grubbing up of woodland to make way for strawberries and other soft fruit.
Inter-war development following World War I began with community housing at Beldam Haw in the 1920s, but otherwise continued on a private sector basis, largely for incomers. This included bungalows along Knockholt Road, many of which have since been rebuilt. However, development in the 1920s was primarily on the north-western fringes of the parish, at the Stonehouse estate. Like the Badgers Mount estate in Shoreham parish, this was more closely related to accessibility to main roads, than to the village itself.
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