The History of Oswestry / Comprising the British, Saxon, Norman, and English eras; the topography of the borough; and its ecclesiastical and civic history; with notices of botany, geology, statistics, angling, and biography: to which are added sketches of the environs

by William Cathrall

HALSTON,

The seat of Edmund Wright, Esq., was for several centuries the property of the Myttons. It is situated within a mile of Whittington, on the Oswestry and Ellesmere turnpike road. It is called in ancient deeds Haly-stone or Holy-stone. Near the house stood the abbey, taken down about a century and a half ago. The Rev. Peter Roberts says, “That it had been a sanctuary is evident. Meyric Lloyd, lord of some part of Uwch Ales, in the reign of Richard I., would not yield subjection to the English Government, under which the Hundred of Dyffryn Clwyd and several others were then, and having taken some English officers that came there to execute the law, (which was contrary to the customs of the Britons,) hanged some and killed others. For this act he forfeited his lands to the king, fled, and took sanctuary at Halston, where (for his notable enterprises and merited chivalry,) he was taken under the protection of its possessor, John Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, ‘who made him general of the army in the besieging of Aeon, in Asia, anno dom. 1190, where he behaved himself,’ as Reynolds informs us, ‘with such dexterous attempts as were admirable to the spectators.’” [See his exploits further recorded in our notice of “Llanforda.”]

In the Saxon era the Lordship of Halston belonged to Edric, at which time there were on the property two Welshmen and one Frenchman. After the Conquest Halston became the property of an Earl of Arundel, or of Robert, Earl of Shrewsbury, and was afterwards bestowed on the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. In the 26th Henry VIII. the commandry was valued at £160 14s. 10d. a year. On the abolition of many of the military-religious orders and monasteries, Henry empowered John Sewster, Esq., Scutifer, and afterwards allowed him to dispose of this manor to Alan Horde, who made an exchange with, or sold it to Edward Mytton, Esq., of Habberly, ancestor to the present John Mytton, Esq. This alienation was subsequently confirmed by Queen Elizabeth.

In a manuscript account of Halston, written in 1821 by the late Rev. C. A. A. Lloyd, we find the following description:—

“The Manor of Halston is extra-parochial. The Mansion-house of Halston was formerly situated near the chapel, but in the year 1690 it was removed to its present situation, which is on an elevated spot of ground rising out of an extensive flat, and formerly subject to frequent floods. The grandfather of the present owner (the late John Mytton, Esq.,) was a gentleman of great spirit and enterprise, and at considerable trouble and expense drained vast tracts of the low ground, which rendered the neighbourhood more healthy. The river Perry here forms several islands, and its shores are shaded by oaks, perhaps the finest in the country.”

After describing the pictures and books at Halston at the time he was writing, he adds,

“Mr. W. Mytton was engaged for many years in collecting materials for a History of the County, but unfortunately died before he arranged them. Among the collection is a manuscript copy of the History of the County, by Mr. E. Lloyd, of Trenewydd, which Mr. Pennant, by some blunder, mistook for Mr. Mytton’s.”

The Chapel of Halston is a donative, without any other revenue than what the chaplain is allowed by the owner, and is of exempt jurisdiction.

The Mytton family are of great antiquity, and their connection with Shrewsbury is of remote date. The late John Mytton, Esq., sold, among other property belonging to him in that town, a field called the “Chapel Yard,” on Coton Hill. When Leland visited Shrewsbury the Myttons lived on Coton Hill. In the bailiff’s accounts for a year from Michaelmas, 2nd Richard III., among rents in decasu (in decay) is one “Procapella de Coten Thome Mytton,” the sum defaced; and his descendant Thomas Mytton, Esq., was rated for it to the poor as late as 1686. Major-General Thomas Mytton, the great parliamentary commander in the Civil Wars, was a descendant of the Myttons of Shrewsbury. Halston was his birth-place, and he resided there for many years. He was a zealous and untiring leader of the parliament forces under the Commonwealth, and gave his days and nights to the Protector’s cause; but he lived long enough to realize the truth of the poet’s exclamation,

“How wretched is the man that hangs on Princes’ favours!”

He saw men of inferior talent, but ostentatious in profession, placed over him in rank, and had to suffer the penalty which many others paid for their attachment to Cromwell—the neglect and indifference of the party whom he had so long delighted to serve, and the favour of the Protector extended to sycophants and flatterers.

The late John Mytton, Esq., was the last member but one of the family who possessed the Halston estates. This unfortunate gentleman passed a brief life in folly and dissipation, and closed his existence with an unenviable notoriety. On reaching his majority he found himself the owner of immense wealth, in money and landed property. Under pernicious influences he plunged into extravagance, recklessly squandered away his patrimony, and in a few years became the inmate of a gaol,

“Deserted at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed.”

He drew his last breath within the gloomy walls of a prison, at the early age of thirty-eight, and was interred, with his ancestors, in the burial-ground at Halston Chapel.

It is painful to advert to so lamentable a career and so distressing an end. But, whilst we point to Mr. Mytton’s ruinous habits, we cannot withhold the acknowledgment that he had redeeming qualities. Like most men of his pursuits, he often found the means he possessed too limited for his own wants; yet occasionally he would perform noble and generous deeds, that might be classed with the purest benevolence. His mental calibre was of no common order. Had he been rightly disciplined in his youth, and trained to habits of self-denial and literary improvement, his life might have been honourable, and extended to a good old age. “It was the misfortune of John Mytton,” as a county historian observes, “to lose his father in his infancy, and it is remarkable that the heirs of the house of Halston have for several generations been orphans.”

Mr. Mytton was High Sheriff of Salop in 1823, and represented Shrewsbury in the last parliament of George III., being elected May 23rd, 1819. He was a candidate the second time for the same borough, in March, 1820, the other candidates being Panton Corbet, Esq., and the Hon. Henry Grey Bennett, but was then defeated. His Parliamentary career was therefore but of short duration; but brief and useless as it was, it cost him many thousand pounds, to raise which a large portion of his Shrewsbury and other property had to be sold.

Mr. Mytton married in 1818, soon after he became of age, a daughter of Sir Thomas Jones, and sister of the late Sir Thomas John Tyrwhitt Jones, of Stanley Hall, near Bridgenorth, by whom he had one daughter only, who is now the wife of Captain Clement Hill, a brother of Lord Hill. Mrs. Mytton died in 1820, and in the following year he married Caroline, one of the daughters of Thomas Giffard, Esq., of Chillington, in the county of Stafford, by whom he had an eldest son John, (who sold the Halston estate to Mr. Wright,) and several other children. Mrs. Mytton survived her husband, but at her death, although from Mr. Mytton’s erratic habits she had been compelled to separate herself from him, she was, at her own request, laid in the grave at Halston by his side.

The Halston Estate was purchased in April 1847 by the late Edmund Wright, Esq., of Manchester, from the present Mr. Mytton. The property was offered for sale by auction on the 13th of that month, at Dee’s Royal Hotel, Birmingham. At Mr. Wright’s death it came into the possession of his son, Edmund Wright, Esq., the present worthy owner. Since his possession of the estate he has greatly improved it. Additions have been made to the house, and he has otherwise rendered it more convenient and ornamental. The park has been thoroughly drained, four feet in depth, within the last three or four years, the main drain being carried underneath the upper pool, by which means an ample fall for the efficient working of the drain is secured.