In July 1800 the Rev. Reginald Heber wrote to tell his sister Elizabeth Heber that he had learned of ‘Mr Corbet being about to remove his abiding place to Acton Reynald’ from Shawbury Park (q.v.). This was Andrew Corbet (1766–1835) – later Sir Andrew Corbet 1st Bt of Moreton Corbet – who elected to shift the capital seat of the Corbets, once at Moreton Corbet, but latterly at Shawbury – to the estate on the Shrewsbury to Whitchurch road.

Andrew Corbet had succeeded his father, Richard Prynce Corbet, for whom High Hatton Hall (q.v.) had been built, on his death in 1779 and yet it was not until 1799 that his uncle and namesake died, giving him full control of the family’s estates. Initially, he considered a rebuilding of the family’s ancient seat at Moreton Corbet, but Acton Reynald soon became the focus of his attentions and a remodelling was undertaken in 1800.

John Blakeway, described the unreconstructed building as ‘a mere farm house, but [which] retained many traces of its ancient grandeur… The hall was decorated with some shields’. He went on to describe what had evidently been the Great Chamber on the first floor where: ‘Immediately beneath the cornice… were depicted the intermarriages of females of the Corbet family’. The cellars of the house, which were ten feet high, had been fitted with fireplaces and, when works were commenced in the early nineteenth century, the ground-floor rooms were lowered into the cellars to increase their height.

In 1816 it was noted that ‘the principal part of the house is of modern erection’ with only external elements of the earlier house surviving, primarily at the northern end of the house. This part of the building retains a cellar, suggestive of an earlier date and may be part of works said to have been undertaken in 1601. These works are credited by family tradition to Sir Andrew Corbet Kt, the son of Sir Vincent Corbet (1550–1621), and his wife, Frances Humfreston. Sir Andrew’s marriage to Elizabeth Boothby served to cement a strong financial future for the family at that time since Elizabeth was a stepdaughter of Andrew’s uncle, Richard Corbet (d. 1606), and, in spite of his financial profligacy, her mother Judith Austin was a wealthy widow as a result of three marriages.