A fairly uncompromising E-shaped house, with its triple-gabled, purple-red sandstone ashlar front and towering brick chimneystacks, Meeson was built in the early seventeenth century for Cresswell Tayleur (d. 1675) – probably in the 1630s. The house contains a carved overmantel with the dates 1639 and 1640, and recent dendrochronological dating has suggested felling dates of 1635 and 1637 for the timbers. The roof structure has yielded a date of 1644, which also conforms in a pair of timber-framed service wings at the back of the house.

Creswell Tayleur’s younger son, a second Creswell Tayleur (1647–1710) inherited Meeson and the family’s other property at Great Bolas and the estate descended directly through his progeny – who all bore the name Creswell – until, with the death of his greatgreat grandson, Creswell Tayleur VI (1795–1819), the estates were divided between his four sisters. The eldest sister, Rachel Ann, was married to the Rev. Edward Scott Dickinson, and he was recorded as living at Meeson in 1837.

By 1851, Meeson had become the farmhouse of Joseph Ogle, who had purchased it with its land, and was the owner of Tibberton paper mill. Ogle’s successor at the paper mill also succeeded him in his house at Meeson, this being Martin Billing, who acquired the property in circa 1860 and lived there until 1883. At this date, Meeson was sold to Walter Dugdale, whose brother, Charles Tertius Dugdale, lived at Terrick (q.v.). The Dugdales were a Lancashire family who lived at Irwell Bank, Eccles, and Dugdale, after a career in France, had retired to Shropshire in 1885 and then bought Meeson in 1889. It may have been he who made a number of alterations to the house, which included the rebuilding of the centre bay on the entrance front as a projecting ground floor porch flanked by a pair of windows and central first floor bay window projection. This work also appears to have involved the enlargement of the house’s mullioned and transomed windows.