The early eighteenth-century birthplace of the man who grew up to be the 1st Viscount Hill – Wellington’s General at the Battle of Waterloo – Prees Hall is, itself, a distinguished, if undervalued, property in Shropshire’s country house lexicon.

Built of brick in circa 1720, the seven-bay and two-storey main block has a deeply recessed centre of three bays that are framed by Doric pilasters supporting a giant pediment, with a central oculus window, which protrudes from the hipped roof. It has been suggested that the house might have lost a pair of columns that would have been set, in antis, supporting the pediment. There is no evidence for this, though, so this supposition appears unlikely, rendering the house to be of novel form.

A metropolitan precedent and inspiration for this deep, recessed, entry might have come from the pavilions of Buckingham House (since rebuilt by John Nash and others as Buckingham Palace) which had been built for John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1647–1721) by William Winde (1645–1722), possibly in consultation with William Talman (1650–1719), in the first decade of the eighteenth century. The nine-bay pavilions each had similar three-bay recessed centres that were framed by Doric pilasters supporting triglyph and metope frieze below a crowning pediment. Prees, like Hawkstone, was owned by the Hon. and Rev. Richard Hill (1655–1727), whose career was largely Londoncentric. It is perhaps not unreasonable to assume that Prees Hall may have been based upon a London architectural design which was reinterpreted by Shropshire craftsmen. Hill’s own Richmond house, the Trumpeting House (or Trumpeters’ House, as it is known today), also has similarities with the overall form of Prees, in being a compact block of two storeys, with hipped roof and a central portico, the pediment of which is set with an oculus window. At the Trumpeting House, though, the house is larger, in having eleven bays, a projecting portico and also a modillion cornice.