House & Family History: Until the first half of the 19th century, Halston was the seat of the Mytton family – a distinguished lineage that crops up time and again in the annals of Welsh Marches history – who had acquired the Estate in 1549. In 1690 Richard Mytton built the handsome present house of brick with stone dressings on a site to the north of an earlier house (all that remains today from the earlier house is the Medieval Chapel). His descendant, John Mytton, undertook a Grand Tour that was commemorated by Nathaniel Dance's group portrait of him with James Grant of Grant, Thomas Wynn, and Thomas Robinson, a version of which now hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Grand Tour brought back not only Old Master pictures and other souvenirs, but also a desire to re-work the House, which was done by the architect Robert Mylne. The park, too, was altered, landscaped by William Emes to provide a truly Arcadian setting for the Myttons' seat. The cultural pre-eminence of Halston was to be short-lived, since, within two generations, Mytton's grandson and namesake, a hard-riding sportsman whose life was immortalized by the sporting writer C.J. Apperley (better known as Nimrod), had bankrupted the Estate. After his death Halston was sold, first to a Manchester merchant named Edmund Wright, for whom Alexander W. Mills altered the house, and then, in the 1920s, to Captain and Mrs. Joseph Eccles, for whom further changes were wrought by the antiques dealer and decorator Amyas Phillips of Hitchin. The Eccles' descendants, Rupert and Harriet Harvey, make Halston their home today. (We are most grateful to Gareth Williams for this history of Halston Hall).

Chapel & Church: The Halston Chapel is a timber frame building put up about 1560.

House Listed: Grade I

Park Listed: Not Listed

Current Seat / Home of: Rupert and Harriet Harvey

Past Seat / Home of: John Mytton, 18th century; Mytton family here fro 1549 until the mid-19th century. Edmund Wright, 19th century. Captain Joseph Eccles, early 20th century.

Current Ownership Type: Individual / Family Trust

Primary Current Ownership Use: Private Home

House Open to Public: No

Historic Houses Member: No