Summary
This mid-Victorian, Tudor-style mansion of red brick with Grinshill stone dressings had an entrance front of two gabled projections linked by a single storey triple arched balustraded porch. Clusters of brick chimneys crowned the house’s steep roofs, whilst there was an additional gabled wing to the right of the main front. The house was a rebuilding of an earlier property by Samuel Pountney Smith, and was constructed in 1874–5 for Thomas Lloyd Roberts. Smith’s original design, showed the house with shaped gables, a central armorial cresting on the parapet above the porch and a cupola-surmounted tower where the main block joined the wing, all of which was altered in execution. At the time of the design’s publication, the resultant house was described as ‘plain in general expression’ although with ‘a fine entrance hall and staircase of English oak. The drawing room suite has an elaborate ceiling of rib and strap work and heraldic badges by Landucci.’
Following Roberts’ death, in 1886, Corfton passed to Lord Lyttelton who sold the property on to Edward Wood of Culmington (q.v.). Wood had no need for a further residence of his own and so rented the house to a succession of tenants including Richard Alison-Johnson in 1906 and, later, Mr and Mrs Henry Champion who lived there in the early twentieth century.
In 1911 the estate was sold to Percy Giles Holder, for £33,908, and Holder initially resided in the Hall.
Ultimately it was sold by Holder in 1942 to the Church Commissioners. Wartime occupation of the house witnessed the Women’s Land Army followed by the Agricultural Training Board – who used the house as a hostel – whilst in the grounds was a prisoner of war camp.
After the War, in 1953, Corfton was sold to Mrs Treasure and was demolished soon afterwards. Today only the stables and lodge survive, which are both of similar architectural pretensions to the vanished parent-house. The house terrace also remains, today occupied by a bungalow.
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- The Country Houses of Shropshire , pp. 186 - 187Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021