Members of the Blount family built Mawley in the early eighteenth century. This ancient family was said to have descended from the Italian tribe of the Blondi or Biondi, derived from the Roman Flavii. This perceived ancestry might have been an inspiration for the Roman splendours of the interiors of Mawley, which survive as amongst the most important of any English country house.

The Blount pedigree also claims a descent from Blound, Lord of Guisnes in France, whose three sons came to England with William the Conqueror, and two of whom, Sir Robert and Sir William Blound chose to remain in England. The Mawley line stems directly from Walter Blount (d. circa 1323) who married Joan de Sodington, daughter and co-heir of William de Sodington, lord of Eastham (d. circa 1303). The de Sodington seat was just over the Shropshire border at Sodington, Mamble, in Worcestershire, a moated and fortified manor house set in coal-rich land.

Mawley, which had passed from the de Malleye family to the Archer family, was acquired by Thomas Blount of Sodington in 1535 when he bought the property from Richard Archer. The Blounts were a recusant Royalist family at the time of the Civil War who were granted a baronetcy by Charles I in 1642, but paid the price for their loyalty when Sodington was burned by the Parliamentarians. This arson was supposedly due to the fact that their servants had refused to make arms at a forge and, following its destruction, the property was confiscated in 1652. The first baronet, Sir Walter Blount (c. 1594–1654) served as Sheriff of Worcestershire 1619–20, as an MP for Droitwich in 1624–5, but was imprisoned at Oxford and in the Tower of London.

Following the Restoration, the family regained their lands and it was Sir Walter’s great-grandson, Sir Edward Blount 4th Bt, who built Mawley. Sir Edward’s father, George Blount (d. 1702), was the second son of Sir George Blount, 2nd Bt (d. 1667), and his wife Mary Kirkham, whilst Sir Edward’s mother was George’s second wife, Constantia, the daughter of Sir George Cary of Tor Abbey in Devon.