Summary
This plain, early-Georgian brick house of circa 1727 was built for Elizabeth Crompton (d. 1747) whose crest may yet be seen on the lead rainwater hoppers on the sides of the house. With corners bound by stone quoins, and being of relatively modest scale, Broseley Hall might easily be mistaken for the Rectory. It is, though, close to the site of an earlier house and, until 1955, had its own estate that extended down to the River Severn.
Elizabeth Crompton’s great-grandfather, Francis Adams (d. 1668) of Cleeton, had begun to purchase property at Broseley from William Porter in 1620. His daughter, Sarah, married William Crompton and, at the time of the Hearth Tax assessment in 1672, Compton was possessed of a house with fourteen hearths.
Elizabeth was a spinster and yet, in her 1727 work, built with some ambition. Her house is of five bays and three storeys, crowned by a plain parapet, its front elevation with central segmental-headed doorcase flanked by Tuscan pilasters. On the garden front, the house has a pair of central pedimented doors – the one on the right being a sham – standing below the tall and broad window of the staircase. The interior has a double-pile plan, with the wide entrance hall at the centre terminated by the staircase which rises, beyond a segmental arch, in a dogleg, with fluted column newels and three twisted balusters to each tread.
On Elizabeth Crompton’s death she left Broseley to another spinster, Mary Browne (d. 1763), daughter of Ralph Browne of Caughley. Mary had built the now-ruined church at nearby Jackfield as a chapel-of-ease and, at her own death, she left Broseley to her widowed sister-in-law, Anne Browne (d. 1767) who, in turn, left the estate to her brother, Francis Turner Blithe (d. 1770). Formerly known as Francis Turner of Whitley (q.v.), he was the son of the Shrewsbury draper, William Turner and his wife Hannah Blithe. On the death of his uncle, Francis Blithe, Francis inherited the Allesley Estate in Warwickshire, and so adopted the Blithe name.
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- The Country Houses of Shropshire , pp. 137 - 139Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021