Fulshaw Hall is a country house, south of the civil parish of Wilmslow, in Cheshire, England.

[2] The land was once held by the Knights Hospitalier during the reign of Henry III, and later requisitioned for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during WWII.

[3] It was his son, Richard that granted the manor to the Order of St John of Jerusalem (or the 'Knights Hospitalier') during the reign of Henry III.

The house that Finney replaced it with was considerably larger and more impressive, with a seven-bay symmetrical front that survives at the core of the building today.

[7] In 1688, Samuel Finney and his son John supported William of Orange by raising a troop of horse, along with Thomas Latham of nearby Hawthorn Hall.

Samuel Finney became a member of William Penn's council in Pennsylvania, and settled near Philadelphia before his death in 1712.

[8] John Finney returned to England in 1711, and acted as Captain of the Militia for Macclesfield Hundred in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

It is now believed that John did not live permanently at Fulshaw, and so the house had declined into a state of disrepair upon his death in 1728, and remained uninhabited until 1733.

Samuel Finney III, born in 1719, had gone to London to study law, but abandoned the profession for painting.

This became a success, and improved both the family finances and social status, and amassed a fortune sufficient to pay off the encumbrances brought upon Fulshaw by his father.

He compiled a number of works, such as A Historical Survey of the Parish of Wilmslow, and curated the collection of deeds for the Fulshaw estate that survives today.

[8] Peter Finney II was eventually married at Greenock during 1821, to Mary Williams, the daughter of a stone merchant from Chester, but his death in 1824 left Mary with an infant son and a legal challenge to establish the validity of the marriage before their son, Peter Finney, could become heir to Fulshaw, as there was a dispute over it.

[13] Fulshaw was requisitioned by the War Office during the Second World War, and became a major base for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to train agents to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe (and later, also in occupied Southeast Asia) against the Axis powers, and to aid local resistance movements.

[14] A study by John Chartres discovered that among the trainees were important 'Jedburghs’, which were groups of usually three officers that had the task to parachute into France, alongside the Allied Forces and act as liaison teams, making direct contact with the French Resistance.

The entry for the Grade II listing of Fulshaw Hall, by Historic England reads: Formerly manor house, now offices, 1684 for Samuel Finney, additions dated 1735 for Samuel Finney II, major additions, refacing in brick, and alterations dated 1886 for R Lingard Monk.

[15]The oldest remaining part of the house is the building constructed in 1684 for Samuel Finney, with 21⁄2 storeys, and a symmetrical seven-bay front.