It is built of coarse square rubble with a slate roof and stands in a rectangular 40-acre (16 ha), formerly open parkland with avenues of trees, fishponds and a deerpark, which is now enclosed as farmland.

[6] In August 1546, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII, the manor, lordship or grange, with appurtenances in Sherockes, Gytford and Derfold (Darfoulds), was granted to Robert and Hugh Thornhill of Walkeringham with licence to alienate it to Thomas Hewett, Clothworker of London.

[7][8][9] At about the same time Thomas Hewett had acquired the (already plundered) house and lands of Roche Abbey at Maltby, South Yorkshire (about 7 miles north of Shireoaks), from which he could have recovered building stone.

Shireoaks manor had a special association with the ancient oak woodlands (part of Sherwood) which grew where the counties of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire met: the precise location was debated, but one enormous tree standing in the 18th century was said to overhang all three.

[16][17] In 1576 Thomas Hewett, who became a very prosperous London merchant, died leaving Shireoaks manor to his son Henry, also a citizen Clothworker.

[18] Henry's brother William had received the parsonage of Dunton Bassett in Leicestershire, and lands at Mansfield, from his uncle: distinct branches of the family evolved.

Henry died in 1598, leaving his "Manour, Lordshippe or Grange of Sherookes" to his eldest son and heir (Sir) Thomas Hewett.

[23] The Hall stands midway along the south-western edge of this garden, the perimeter walls enclosing a considerable area of land thought to have been laid out thus in the original phase of construction.

He was taken to Shrewsbury (where his grandfather Sir Richard Prynce the younger (1598-1665) was yet living, at Whitehall mansion[26]) for education, and during his minority the Hall was occupied by the Earle family of Rampton.

[29] This younger (Sir) Thomas Hewett, having completed his studies at Oxford, a term of service in the Yeomen of the Guard to Charles II, and some four or five years of travel in Europe, in 1689 married in Geneva and brought his young wife Frances home to Shireoaks.

A matching pair of two-storey rectangular outbuildings with steeply-pitched hipped roofs, now called the East and West Stables (but with domestic fenestration), were built at the north approach to the Hall, the space between them forming an entrance way.

A great lawn extended from the south front of the Hall, ending in a ha-ha to exclude livestock from the park without interrupting the view.

[36] Two long straight avenues of beech trees were planted on lines opening away symmetrically from the Hall and diverging from the canal as their median axis, so as to frame the Vista (the arrangement called a "patte d'oie").

Inside were three rooms with marble walls and floors, each differently appointed with pilasters according to the three classical orders, and with "little Cupids on several Angles prettily design'd".

[37] The ceilings were painted by Henry Trench (an Irish historical painter who studied in Italy and died in 1726[38]), and the building housed a bust of Sir Thomas Hewett by John Michael Rysbrack.

He is thought to have been responsible for reshaping the central block of that hall, with its original full-height porch and colonnaded pediment:[59][60] a private Museum was developed there.

He built a chapel of ease attached to the estate in 1809: "a neat stone edifice, consisting of a nave and chancel, with an octangular tower surmounted by a cupola.

Wheatley instantly (the same day) re-sold it to Vincent Eyre, agent for Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, seated at Worksop.

Hewett was the signal for the Hall itself to be torn down except for that portion of the walls which were bought for a small sum by Mr Froggett, of Sheffield, and fitted up as a dwelling.