The two fine country houses of Mawley Hall and Kinlet Hall have direct historical linkages through the Blount family. Henry Blount, High Sherriff of Shropshire, inherited the Kinlet Estate in 1461. The Blounts lived in the original Kinlet Hall which was later rebuilt in the 18th Century.
Henry Blount’s son, John was an English politician who accompanied King Henry VIII to France in 1520 to attend the meeting between Henry and Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. John’s daughter, Elizabeth, universally known as Bessie, was a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon.
On 15 June 1519, Bessie Blount bore King Henry VIII an illegitimate son who was named Henry FitzRoy, the only illegitimate son who Henry acknowledged as his own. Proving that Henry was capable of fathering healthy sons, Elizabeth Blount prompted a popular saying “Bless ‘ee, Bessie Blount”.
The Blount Baronetcy was created in 1642 for Walter Blount, a Royalist who fought in the Civil War but was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London. In 1652, he was convicted of treason and his estates, including Mawley Hall, were sequestrated. These were restored to the family only after the Restoration.
Grade I listed Palladian country house Kinlet Hall was built in 1727-9 by Francis Smith of Warwick for William Lacon Childe. The original Kinlet village was then re-sited a mile away, leaving the Hall and the Church of St John The Baptist surrounded only by parkland and gardens.
Kinlet’s heyday was in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, at a time when coal was mined within the Estate. The confidence of the time was reflected in the building of a large additional room at the Hall – the Library – which was completed in 1827. In time, this was to become the Hall’s Ballroom.
Subsequent years proved more difficult. Although the Childe family continued to live at the Hall, in 1940 the house became a temporary school for the blind. And in 1945, the Engleheart family brought Moffats preparatory school to Kinlet, from which it operated successfully for more than 70 years, closing in 2017.
In recent years, Kinlet Hall and its grounds have been utilised commercially for marriages. Its idyllic setting and the proximity of Kinlet Church make it a perfect location for marriages, which will feature prominently once the Hall has been restored.