Albrighton Hall, Shrewsbury

Thomas Ireland, who was High Sheriff of Shropshire, built Albrighton Hall in about 1630.

When she died in 1796 the property reverted to the Crown but shortly after was granted to his nephew John Ireland.

In 1809 at the age of only 29 he died and his son also called Inigo William Jones who at this time was only three years old inherited Albrighton Hall.

They lived in Heath Green House near Birmingham and rented Albrighton Hall to wealthy tenants.

[9] Richard died in 1840 and Lady Emma Elizabeth Puleston continued to reside at Albrighton Hall.

He owned the Horsely Fields Iron and Tin Plate Works, and the Osier Bed blast furnaces at Wolverhampton.

They had no children so when he died in 1881 the Hall was inherited by his nephew William Arthur Brown.

Captain George William Sparrow (1876-1918) was educated at the University of Oxford and helped his father run the estate.

When the First World War started in 1914 he joined the King's Shropshire Light Infantry.

He survived almost the whole War then in October 1918 he was hit by a sniper bullet in France and was killed.

During the Second World War the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Tunbridge Wells was evacuated to the Hall, where Catholic priest, poet and editor Henry Edward George Rope was chaplain.

[16] Sparrow sold the Hall and in 1953 it was converted to accommodate male students of the Royal National College for the Blind when based in Shropshire.