In 1190, Lea was owned by Reyner de Lee, whose family established itself at several other properties throughout Shropshire. During the fourteenth century, Roger Lee (d. 1383) married Joan Burnell, one of the three heiresses of the Burnells of Langley (q.v.) giving the family a foothold in what was to become an equally significant landholding to the south of the county town.

The present house at Lea was built by Richard Lee (d. 1591) in 1585. His splendid alabaster tomb – probably erected by his son – can be found at St Mary’s Church, Acton Burnell. He was married to Eleanor, daughter of Walter Wrottesley of Wrottesley, Staffordshire. Their house seems to occupy the old site and yet is very much of its time and reflects the status suggested by the Acton Burnell tomb. Facing eastwards, the house is built of diapered brick with stone dressings and is on the U-plan, of two storeys with gabled attics. The most southerly of the gables on the east front has a remarkable, immense, sandstone buttress resting against it, although there is no evidence of any structural movement that might have justified such a large out-build of this sort. On the ends of the wings are projecting chimneys that are crowned by star-shaped brick stacks. Yet the house has been much altered, now having timber windows of the eighteenth century which have been barbarously inserted into the façades, leaving in-filled windows as echoes of the original fenestration. It is also possible to read the scars of what were probably originally stair turrets in the angles of the wings – the roofs of which might have further enlivened the silhouette of the house upon its hill.

The interior of Lea Hall, which is divided by timber-framed walls, was originally dominated by a large ground floor hall in the central range, with a great chamber located above, whilst the easternmost room of the south range was the parlour. Now serving as the drawing room, the former parlour – like the bedroom above it – still retains its panelling. Here it has an arcaded frieze and a projecting overmantel with three deeply set panels above a blind-fret apron.