Oteley occupies a magnificent position, presiding over the Mere on the opposite side of the water from the town of Ellesmere. It is an ancient estate, with an old former deer park which held a herd from the early fourteenth century to the early twentieth. The estate has seemingly never been bought or sold, having passed by inheritance from the Oteleys to the Kynastons and thence to the Mainwarings, the present owners of the estate.

The Oteley family’s male line ended with William Oteley, whose daughter and heiress, Elizabeth, married Humphry Kynaston of Stocks in the reign of Henry VIII. The Kynastons themselves were an ancient family who, through their ancestor Iorweth Goch, Lord of Mochnant, claimed a descent from the Royal Welsh house of Powys. In the time of Henry VI, Humphry Kynaston’s grandfather, John (or Jenkin) Kynaston, had been the second son of Griffith Kynaston of Stocks – an estate that he ultimately succeeded to. His younger brother, Sir Roger Kynaston, meanwhile settled at Hordley and founded the line that settled at Hardwick Hall (q.v.) in the early eighteenth century.

Humphry and Elizabeth’s successors at Oteley made a series of strong alliances through their marriages: their son George married Jane, daughter of Sir George Grey of Enville, whilst grandson, Francis (d. 1581), married Margaret, the widow of Arthur Chambre and daughter of Francis Charlton of Apley Castle (q.v.). Francis Kynaston was Cup Bearer or Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth I and he and his wife were ultimately commemorated with a splendid alabaster tomb-chest, carved with their effigies, which can still be seen in St Mary’s Church, Ellesmere. Their son, Sir Edward Kynaston Kt, who married Isabella, daughter of Sir Nicholas Bagnall, Knight Marshall of Ireland, served as Shropshire’s High Sheriff in 1599.

Sir Edward and Lady Kynaston’s son was also dubbed a knight in due course. Sir Francis (1587– 1642), as he became, served as Esquire of the Body to Charles I, but is best known to posterity as the translator of Chaucer’s Troilus and Creseide into Latin verse.