The loss of Park Hall, when it burned down in 1918, was one of the great but perhaps least-recognised heritage tragedies of the twentieth century. As a consequence, today it is unknown by many.

The great timber-framed house is believed to have been built in 1563 by Thomas Powell who had bought part of the Lordship of Whittington, including the former Park, hence the estate’s name. Powell was the son of Robert ap Howell ‘of the town of Oswestry, draper’, whose will was proved on October 24th 1541. His purchase was made in 1563 from the Earl of Arundel and his son-in-law Lord Lumley, who were then dismantling the great Arundel Shropshire estates. Powell had married Mary, the daughter of Sir Robert Corbet of Moreton Corbet (q.v.) and he retained enjoyment of the property until his death in 1588.

The building that might be attributed to Thomas Powell’s patronage was a great E-plan timber-framed building of two jettied storeys and gabled attics. The framing was greatly enlivened by decoration, with quatrefoil panel decoration across the first floor of the outer wings and a continuous row of balustrade silhouette verticals below the windows of the attics. The house also had a small single-storey domestic chapel attached at its south-west corner which was said to have been consecrated by Archbishop Matthew Parker (1504–1565). It was described in 1893 when the Cambrian Archaeological Association visited as: ‘wainscoted and ceiled in oak, and it has a small gallery which is entered from the house…Over the door on the interior is the inscription, “Petra et Ostium Christus est.”.’

Powell’s son and successor, Robert, made another high status marriage in taking the hand of Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Needham of Shavington (q.v.) and was Sheriff of Shropshire in 1593–4. The property passed through several generations of the Powell family until sold by Jane, the daughter of Thomas Powell, Sheriff of Shropshire in 1717, to Sir Francis Charlton, 2nd Bt (c. 1651–1729) of Ludford