Kilhendre stood within a mile of the border with Flintshire, and was the site of a timber-framed seat of the Edwardes family, who claimed royal Welsh blood with an ancestry that included Tudor Trevor and Caradoc Vreichfras.

In the reign of Edward VI, Hugh ap Edwards of Kilhendre, a merchant of Shrewsbury and London, and the recipient of the former College of St Chad in Shrewsbury, was amongst those responsible for the charter of foundation for Shrewsbury Grammar School in 1552. Hugh Edwards – as he became known – had married Alice Keyle in 1531 and Kilhendre ultimately passed to their elder son, Timothy Edwards, who was described as of both Kilhendre and Plas Yolyn (q.v.). Their younger son, Thomas, acquired land at Greete and Meole Brace and was father of the first Edwardes baronet of Greete and Shrewsbury, as well as ancestor of the Frodesley family of that name. The Greete line later came to be represented by the Hope-Edwardes family of Netley (q.v.).

During the Civil War, Kilhendre was owned by Timothy Edwards’ grandson, Thomas Edwards (c. 1592–1667), who was married to Frances, daughter of John Aldersey of Aldersey and Spurstow, Cheshire. Thomas served Parliament as Governor of Wrexham and, in his time, Kilhendre proved a refuge for Colonel John Jones, Cromwell’s Governor of Dublin.

In the late seventeenth century, Kilhendre was inherited by Frances Edwards (b. circa 1667) and, in 1713, she settled the estate so that it was inherited firstly by her younger sister, Anne, and then by her cousin, Edward Morrall (d. 1741). Edward was the son of Frances’ aunt, Judith Edwards (d. 1687), and her husband, John Morrall (d. 1688), who were living at Plas Yolyn.

The house at that time is depicted by Mrs Frances Stackhouse Acton as being straight timbered with a front of four gables, the centre pair both having jettied upper storeys. Diagonally-set chimney stacks reached above the roofline, whilst to the right was an addition of two broad gabled bays from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century.