Broncroft is a nineteenth-century reinvention of a genuine medieval castle, seemingly effected in three Victorian campaigns. The 1868 restoration by John Pollard Seddon gave the house its present distinctive form. It is now entered through a deeply-machicolated entrance wing which sits at the inner corner of an L-plan range, with twin-gabled Victorian ranges to the left and a southern range, comprising two towers of medieval origin, on the right. Parts of the structure built in 1377–99 by Sir Simon Burley are apparently included in the south-east and south-west towers and also the footings of the supposed former dovecote to the west. These elements were possibly added to a yet-earlier structure, which may have been built by the Burleys’ predecessors, the Tyrel family.

With the death of Sir William Burley in 1470, Broncroft passed to the Littleton family via Sir William’s daughter Johanna, who had married Sir Thomas Littleton of Teddesley, Staffordshire. Broncroft was inherited by the Littletons’ son, another Sir William who died in 1507, but by the 1540s it was in the hands of the Talbot Earls of Shrewsbury when Leland described Broncroft as ‘a very goodly place like a Castle’. Part of the Broncroft estate, Broncroft Parks, remained with the Littletons until the mid seventeenth century, but the Castle itself passed to the Lutley family who were owners from the late sixteenth century, possibly through an exchange of properties with the Littletons.

During the Civil Wars, Broncroft was garrisoned for the King in 1642, but had become a Parliamentarian house, by June 1645, before returning to the Royalists by October when Lord Calvin was Governor. On the conclusion of the Wars it was slighted but was restored, although the Lutleys appear to have tenanted the Castle for the remainder of their ownership.

Bartholomew Richard Lutley (1717–1783), having taken the name and arms of Barneby upon inheriting the Brockhampton Estate in Herefordshire, inherited Broncroft in 1778. His successor John Barneby, preferring the Herefordshire seat, sold Broncroft in 1807 to Thomas Royds of Rochdale. On Royds’ death in 1817 the property was again sold, this time to George Johnstone (1784–1856) who, in 1851, was resident at the Castle, when he was described as the principal landowner at Broncroft and Lower Park.