The Wycherley family are said to have been settled at Clive since at least 1410 and it was here that the dramatist, William Wycherley, was born in 1640. William Wycherley’s father, Daniel, had bought the manors of Wem and Loppington but, as a result of the costs associated with law suits, conveyed both to Judge Jeffreys for £9,000. Daniel Wycherley is credited with the building of the core of the house at Clive, which still stands as a timbered range to the left of the entrance front. This, with part of the right hand range, is identifiable in an engraving after a drawing by David Parkes of 1796.

The Wycherleys maintained a high standing in Shropshire society, with Daniel’s grandson marrying, in 1724, Anne, the daughter of Thomas Hill of Soulton (q.v.). By the latter part of the eighteenth century, though, Clive Hall was owned by Robert Embrey (d. 1786), a devisee of Elizabeth Cadman (d. 1773) by whom he had come into the property. With Embrey’s death, his trustees sold the property on to Charles Harding in 1801. Harding was married twice and by his second wife, Abigail, he had a son called George (baptised in 1809).

By 1837 it was the property and residence of John Harding. In 1873 it was sold to the Hardings’ relation, Thomas Meares (1825–1916). Meares’ father had been a farmer from north Shropshire who encountered financial difficulties, leaving Thomas initially to take work as a farm labourer. Thomas Meares went on to Manchester, where he became a grocer’s assistant, and eventually his interest in tea took him to Ceylon. Here, he became a tea-planter with diverse business interests that enabled him to acquire Clive Hall and to which he retired in 1884.

The house stands parallel to the village street in Clive, set back behind a wall and front gardens. It offers a balanced composition, with a gabled projection at each end and a central smaller gable on the long range that unites them. Mostly rendered and of two storeys with attics, the left-hand projection is of exposed close studded timber framing, with a two-storeyed canted bay window. The glazed and gabled single storey porch stands to the side of this, probably a part of the alterations effected for Thomas Meares, from 1873, by Samuel Pountney Smith.