In the middle of the sixteenth century there were close ties between the families of Plowden, Englefield and Sandford. Since early in the century the Plowden family estate, Plowden Hall at Lydbury in Shropshire, had been in the possession of Humphrey Plowden, but at that time it appears to have been scarcely habitable. Humphrey Plowden and his wife lived in another house at Bishop’s Castle, which may have been Blunden Hall on the outskirts of the town; and it is probable that their eldest son, Edmund, who became the most celebrated lawyer of his day, was born there in 1518. When Humphrey Plowden died on 10 March 1558, Edmund succeeded to the family estate and he then began the repair and restoration of Plowden Hall. Among the Shropshire neighbours of the Plowdens were the Englefields, who owned large estates in the Isle of Up Rossall, near Shrewsbury. Plowden’s eldest sister, Margaret, had married Richard Sandford, an impoverished member of an old Shropshire family, and she and her husband were living at the Isle of Up Rossall on a small holding that formed part of the Englefield estates. Another of Plowden’s sisters, Jane, had married Richard Blunden who came from Bishop’s Castle, but he and his wife were then living at Burghfield, near Reading, in Berkshire. In 1569, Plowden bought property nearby which included the manor of Wokefield and other land at Stratfield Mortimer, Burghfield and Sulhampstead, and at some time he acquired an interest in Shiplake Court, the manor house at Shiplake which formed part of one of the Englefield manors in Oxfordshire.