Eyton was a seat of the Bromley family who contracted the carpenter, John Sandford, to build a new five bay range of a timber-framed mansion in 1551. The client, Sir Thomas Bromley, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in 1553, was one of the executors of the will of Henry VIII and he had acquired Eyton following the Dissolution. At his death in 1555 he was commemorated by an outstanding alabaster monument with recumbent effigies, that was possibly the work of Richard Parker of Burton-on-Trent, and which occupies a prime position in the chancel of the parish church of St Andrew in Wroxeter.

Bromley’s daughter and heiress, Margaret (d. 1598), married Sir Richard Newport (d. 1570) of High Ercall (q.v.), and their son Sir Francis Newport (1557–1623) is said to have rebuilt the mansion in 1607 in a style similar to Condover Hall, perhaps with assistance from the mason, Walter Hancock. No records of the house’s appearance seem to have survived, although one of an original pair of garden houses remains to give an indication of the former grandeur of the seat. Octagonal, and having a flat balustrade roof, with a taller slender octagonal side turret that is crowned with an ogee cap, the building presents sandstone walls to the former garden terrace whilst the rest of the building is of diapered brick. It is now a holiday let, having been restored by Arrol and Snell for the Vivat Trust in 1984.

Francis Newport’s grandson and namesake, Francis Newport (1619/20–1708) – later 1st Earl of Bradford of the first creation – was evidently seated at Eyton during his father’s lifetime since he appears described as ‘of Eyton upon Severn’ in a list of compounders in 1655. On this list, he is shown liable for the enormous sum of £5,284. After the Restoration, and during his time, the house was evidently fashionably furnished since Francis Newport’s brother, Andrew, referred to the withdrawing room as hung with Indian silk – in fact probably Chinese silk that would have been imported via the East India Company.