Rudge stands on high ground at the very border of the county and yet enjoys remarkable views back across the South Shropshire Hills. The house is on an ancient site which is borne out by a stone, barrel-vaulted cellar under the present house that suggests medieval origins.

Rudge, in the late seventeenth century, was the seat of John Warter (b. 1656), whose father, William Warter of Swancote, had married Sarah Boycott in 1654. John Warter was killed as a result of a fall from his horse, on returning from Wolverhampton, and he left an only child, Catherine (d. 1743), who in 1742 married her kinsman William Boycott (d. 1762) of Uppington, Shropshire. The couple had no children and Rudge passed to William Boycott’s younger brother, the Rev. Richard Boycott, who was succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas (d. 1798). Thomas was married to Jane, the youngest daughter of John Puleston of Pickhill, Denbighshire and, at his death, Rudge passed to the couple’s eldest son, another Thomas Boycott who, in 1801, married Jane the eldest daughter of Thomas Tarleton of Bolesworth Castle, Cheshire. Thomas appears to have been using the Staffordshire landscape gardener John Webb in improvements at Rudge in 1807, and the improvement of the park may date from this time.

In 1837 the house was still the seat of Thomas Boycott and he remained in occupation in 1851 when the house was described as ‘built of brick, and stuccoed. The park grounds are of considerable extent, and richly wooded’.

While Thomas Boycott’s son and namesake sadly died unmarried in 1827, there were four daughters, of whom the youngest, Louisa Mary Catherine (d. 1873), married Andrew Wight (1800–1858) of Ormiston, East Lothian, in 1841. Their youngest and only surviving son, Cathcart, took the surname of Wight-Boycott by Royal Licence in 1886. Cathcart Wight-Boycott (1849–1891) succeeded to Rudge by arrangement with his aunt, Miss Emma Boycott, during her lifetime. In 1872 he married Elizabeth, youngest daughter of George Grazebrook of Pedmore, and the estate thereafter passed to his son Lt-Col Thomas Andrew Wight-Boycott (1872–1916). The Colonel was married to Anne Catherine, daughter of the Rev. John Morgan, Rector of Llandudno and the couple had one daughter Millicent Anwyl. On the Colonel’s death, Rudge passed to his widow and the estate was sold in 1921.