The land on which the house stands was owned originally by the Mostyn family of North Wales.

In 1863 Potts sold the house and land to Thomas Brittain Forwood, a businessman who died in 1884.

His son, Sir William Forwood, chairman of Liverpool Overhead Railway, let the house to William Lever (later 1st Viscount Leverhulme), builder of the soap factory and model village at Port Sunlight, in 1888.

[2] The architect Jonathan Simpson made some minor alterations but the first major work was designed by the Chester firm Douglas and Fordham in about 1896.

[2] A gatehouse designed by J. Lomax-Simpson was built in 1910; the base of this is in stone and its upper part is half-timbered.

Plans for further enlargement of the house were prepared by Lomax-Simpson, but these were not built because of the outbreak of the First World War.

Lord Leverhulme died in July 2000, and, the following year, the house was sold with planning permission to convert it into a hotel.

A system of tree-lined avenues was laid out in 1912–14 by Lomax-Simpson, and has a total length of about 5 miles (8 km).

[6] British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar held private talks at Thornton Manor on 10 October 2019 in relation to Brexit.