Attingham was designed and built by George Steuart for Noel Hill, 1st Lord Berwick, essentially as a very grand mask around a previous house known as Tern Hall. Richardson’s New Vitruvius explicitly shows the way in which Steuart encased the earlier building, retaining it as informal family rooms and service accommodation. The presence of this earlier house – essentially a rectangular Queen Anne block, onto which full-height canted bays had been added – was, as Richardson’s elevations show, essential to the general disposition of massing of the Steuart house.

Tern Hall had been built in 1700–1701 following the purchase of the nucleus of the property by Richard Hill (1655–1727) of Hawkstone, the Deputy Paymaster under the Earl of Ranelagh. The building work was initially directed by his brother, Robert, who died in 1701. Robert and his wife had six daughters, and a family arrangement saw the young women receive significant financial considerations, whilst the building Tern Hall and management of its estate passed to Robert and Richard’s sister, Margaret, and her second husband, the Shrewsbury grocer and member of the Shrewsbury Drapers, Thomas Harwood.

At Richard Hill’s death, Tern was inherited by the Harwoods and, seven years later, their son, Thomas assumed the name of Hill and took charge of the estate.

Thomas Hill (1693–1782) was a shrewd businessman who had trained as a banker and dedicated himself to increasing the family’s possessions. In 1743 he had purchased the manor of Brompton; in 1753 the manor of Eyton near Alberbury; prior to 1755 lands at Lythwood; and then, in 1770, he bought the Sutton and Betton estates of Herbert Mackworth (later Sir Herbert Mackworth, 1st Bt of Gnoll, 1736–1791). Hill was not especially interested in the amenity value of Tern Hall and he allowed the continued development of a forge, on the banks of the River Tern below the house, which had been established in his uncle’s tenure in 1710. This was a large scale operation, initially overseen by Thomas Harvey and included Harvey’s brother-in-law, Abraham Darby I, amongst its partners.