The seat of the Severne family was set in a steep wooded valley to the south-west of Westbury. The Severnes were an old Worcestershire family, who had held lands at Powick and Shrawley in that county. John Severne (1622–1689), Mayor of Shrewsbury in 1675, was the first of the family to be described as ‘of Wallop’, and he is credited with building the family’s first house at Wallop circa 1664–1671.

His son, Thomas Severne (1664–1737) of Wallop and of Rhos Goch, Montgomeryshire, was Gentleman of the Bedchamber to William III and served as High Sheriff of Montgomeryshire in 1697–1698. In the early eighteenth century, the Severnes came into possession of Thenford in Northamptonshire and thereafter divided their time between this and Wallop as their two main seats.

Wallop, which was described by Stanley Leighton as having previously been ‘a small shooting box’, was extensively rebuilt in 1874 for John Edmund Severne (1826–1899), MP for Ludlow 1865–8 and for South Shropshire 1876–1885, and who maintained a London house at 53 Eaton Place. Severne had been able, during his tenure, in 1868, to add the manor of nearby Caus to the family’s possessions, purchasing it in 1868 from Robert Miller, and he had also acquired the Whitton Hall estate (q.v.) in 1877. High Sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1861, J.E. Severne sadly died after being knocked down by a horse-drawn van in London, whereupon his estates were inherited by a thirteen-year-old nephew, Edmund Charles Wigley Severne (1886–1935), the son of his younger brother, Edmund Wigley Severne (1835–1914).

The appearance of the earlier house prior to his time is not known, but following its 1874 remodelling it comprised three staggered gabled projections, with an open strapwork-crested bay window upon the ground floor of the central bay and a service wing extending to the right of the main house. The architect’s name does not appear to have been recorded although stylistically the work suggested the hand of the Shrewsbury architect, Samuel Pountney Smith.