Trewern Hall Estate (Wales)

Corporate body

Trewern Hall Estate (Wales)

fl. 15 cent.-2017.

Trewern Hall, at Buttington near Welshpool in the 15th-16th centuries was owned by the Lloyd family. Richard Lloyd, was killed in riots at Norwich in 1549 and his father, Humphrey, died in 1561. By 1584 Edward Lloyd had leased Trewern to Reginald Francis (d. 1608), who then acquired the freehold, together with further lands in Uppington, Betws and Tregynon. Reginald's son, Robert, undertook major renovations at the Hall in 1610, but it was his grandson, Roger, who succeeded to the estate. By that time it was heavily encumbered by debts, and in 1641 it passed into the hands of the mortgagees, the Whittaker family. John Whittaker sold Trewern Hall and the demesne lands to Thomas Williams in 1673 and his daughter, Elizabeth, sold the remaining properties in 1699. Legal disputes over the ownership of Trewern Hall during the 18th century ended in the property coming into possession of the Crown in 1755. In 1766 it was granted by the Crown to Thomas Lloyd of Trefnant Hall, Castell Caereinion. The Lloyd family heavily mortgaged Trewern and accumulated vast debts. Their trustees made several abortive attempts to sell the property between 1771 and 1814. Eventually the four daughters and co-heiresses of Edward Lloyd agreed to sell all the Trefnant estate. Trewern Hall was sold separately in 1829 to a Welshpool solicitor called Francis Allen. He died in 1852, leaving his properties to his daughter, Mary Grace, who married a Liverpool businessman called William Fisher in 1854. The couple were childess and after Mary's death in 1893 the estate was inherited by her nearest relatives, the Gregory family, who were living in Canada. In 1916 the Gregorys' legal representatives leased Trewern Hall to Evan Chapman of Hyssington Farm, who was married to Martha Turner of Trewern House. The Chapmans purchased Trewern Hall and the Plough and Harrow Inn in 1918. The Hall has been in the ownership of the same family ever since, and it underwent a historically sympathetic restoration in 1985.

lcsh