Sir Rowland Hill

Sir Rowland Hill of Hawkstone Park in North Shropshire was a successful textile merchant and first Protestant Mayor of London. Hill took advantage of the Dissolution of the Monasteries to buy land that had previously belonged to several abbeys in the area. This also included Shrewsbury.

The Manor of Atcham

His descendant, also Rowland Hill bought the manor of Atcham, near the River Tern. His son Richard, a statesman and diplomat during the reigns of William III and Queen Anne inherited the estate from his father. Richard also had shares in the South Sea Company which had links to the transatlantic slave trade. On his death in 1727, Richard left the estate to his sister Margaret and her son Thomas as well as 5000 shares in the East India Company.

Attingham Hall

In 1768, Noel Hill, Member of Parliament for Shropshire, received Tern Hall as a wedding gift on his marriage to Anne Vernon. When Noel’s father died in 1782, Hill immediately commissioned the Scottish architect George Steuart to create Attingham Hall. It was built around the old Tern Hall.

As a Member of Parliament, Noel Hill supported William Pitt the Younger’s East India Bill of 1784 which attempted to reform the East India Company. In recognition of this support, Hill was made a Baron and took on the title of 1st Baron Berwick.

In the 1770s, Noel commissioned the landscape architect Thomas Leggett to create a large walled garden and the Mile Walk in the Pleasure Grounds.

Thomas Hill was 18 years old when he inherited the estate from his father. He set off on a Grand Tour, buying numerous paintings, furniture and antiquities which he brought back to Attingham.

In 1805–7, Thomas Hill commissioned John Nash to remodel Attingham’s interiors including creating a large Picture Gallery to house his vast collection of paintings.

Humphry Repton

Hill also invited the landscape designer Humphry Repton to improve the park. [Repton’s Red Book is still in the Collection]. Further land was bought by Thomas in 1797 to create the Deer Park.

In 1812, Thomas married Sophia Dubochet, 35 years his junior. Ostracized by society, the couple continued to spend money until in 1827, virtually bankrupt, Thomas was forced to sell most of the contents of the house. The sale lasted over sixteen days with Thomas fleeing to Italy where he died in 1832. The estate was left to his younger brother William Noel-Hill, 3rd Baron Berwick.

After spending 25 years as a diplomat in Italy, William returned to Attingham with his fine collection of art which included silverware, porcelain and sculpture.

But after the family’s financed dwindled, the house was largely shut up with subsequent Barons living in smaller houses on the estate.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Attingham was inherited by Thomas, 8th Baron Berwick (1877–1947) and his Italian-born wife Edith Teresa Hulton, known as ‘Bim’.  The couple dedicated their lives to restoring the interiors of Attingham and its art collections.

The National Trust

Upon the death of Thomas in 1947, Attingham was left to the National Trust. It remains one of the most generous bequests the National Trust has ever received.