High Hatton was built, effectively, as a house for an heir-in-waiting by Richard Prynce Corbet (1735–1779), the younger son of Andrew Corbet (1694–1757) of Shawbury Park (q.v.) and his wife, Frances, daughter of Captain William Prince of Abcott (q.v.). Richard’s elder brother, Andrew (1719–1796), who succeeded to the family’s estates, was a bachelor and his eventual heir was his brother’s son, Andrew (later Sir Andrew Corbet, 1st Bt of Moreton Corbet) and so the creation of a modest new capital house allowed for the heir to be brought up close to his inheritance.

High Hatton had been a possession of the Corbet family of Hadley (q.v.) until the sixteenth century when Richard Corbet sold it, and Hadley, to Sir Rowland Hill in 1548. Hill gave High Hatton to his nephew, Rowland Barker of Wollerton, in 1560 and, after a period of consolidation of his property, Barker sold the property on in 1588 to Richard Corbet of Moreton. The High Hatton property followed the descent of Shawbury Park and so became the chosen part of the property for the younger brother’s house. Prior to building High Hatton, though, Richard is recorded by Blakeway as having been living at Hardwicke near Hadnall in 1762.

Richard Prynce Corbet built a modest, and yet tall, two-and-a-half storeyed square brick house that is dated 1762, the height of which is accentuated by the central chimney stack which rises out of the pyramid roof. On the three-bay entrance front, the centre bay projects slightly forward but ornament is sparse beyond the scrolls supporting the entablature of the doorcase and a well-moulded eaves cornice. The east-facing side elevation shows greater movement with a full height canted bay, whilst, tailing off to the west is the service wing – now, regrettably, rebuilt. The verticality of the main block is hugely effective in the flat north Shropshire countryside and is convincingly attributed to Thomas Farnolls Pritchard (c. 1723–1777). Pritchard was certainly the designer of the interiors, since the dining room chimneypiece, with its carved frieze of continuous oak leaves, appears in his Drawing Book as for ‘Ricd. Corbet Esqr. Highhatton’ and is there noted to be the work of John Nelson and Van der Hagen. Pritchard’s involvement is also borne out by other chimneypieces that are characteristic of his work – including an idiosyncratic Chinoiserie design in a first floor bedroom over the dining room.