The sixteenth-century Frodesley Hall has now disappeared and its name is given to an unremarkable Victorian farmhouse that has supplanted it. The old house was, according to Augustus Hare, ‘wantonly destroyed’ in 1888 although other authors have suggested that its destruction was some six years earlier.

The demolished south-facing house had been built in 1594 for Edward Scriven (1549–1631), Sheriff of Shropshire in 1597, whose ancestor Roger Scriven (fl. 1389) had come into the property by marrying the heiress Helen Hunald. Edward had married, as his first wife, Anne the daughter and heiress of William Botterell of Aston Botterell and the house seems to have been built on an E-plan with three projecting wings, the most westerly of which was demolished in circa 1680. Of rubble stone with dressed stone mullions, the surviving elements were illustrated by Mrs Stackhouse Acton in 1868, and she showed it as a two storey gabled house with attics and a two storey canted bay that swelled out and was crowned by a gable.

The builder’s son, Sir Thomas Scriven (d. 1644), was a Royalist during the Civil Wars, serving as a Colonel of a Regiment of Foot and as Governor of Whitchurch. He is said to have been presented with a pair of leather gauntlets by Charles I. Mortally wounded in the attack on Wem, he died in the following January. He had married twice – in both instances to daughters of fellow Royalist households. His first wife, Elizabeth (d. 1612), was daughter of Sir Thomas Bromley of Shrawardine (q.v.), whilst his second wife, another Elizabeth, was the daughter of Sir Vincent Corbet and widow of Robert Corbet of Stanwardine (q.v.). Their son, Richard Scriven, was the successor to Frodesley. With his wife Susanna, he had a daughter and heiress, Margaret (b. 1654). She married Roger Whitley of Peover, Cheshire in 1678 and their daughter, Elizabeth married Richard Lloyd Gwillim. The Gwillims’ son, Edward, conveyed Frodesley to Samuel Edwards (c. 1668–1738) in 1712.

Edwards hailed from Westminster and was married to Rebecca, the daughter of John Godolphin, whose family name provided the unusual forename to their son, Godolphin Edwards (d. 1772). Samuel – who also came to own West Coppice (since renamed Buildwas Park q.v.) – had over-extended himself during his lifetime.